Search for Higgs Boson Decay to a Charm Quark-Antiquark Pair in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV


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Tumasyan A., Adam W., Andrejkovic J., Bergauer T., Chatterjee S., Damanakis K., ...More

Physical review letters, vol.131, no.6, pp.61801, 2023 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 131 Issue: 6
  • Publication Date: 2023
  • Doi Number: 10.1103/physrevlett.131.061801
  • Journal Name: Physical review letters
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Aerospace Database, Chemical Abstracts Core, Compendex, INSPEC, zbMATH, DIALNET
  • Page Numbers: pp.61801
  • Yıldız Technical University Affiliated: No

Abstract

A search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a charm quark-antiquark pair, H→cc[over ¯], produced in association with a leptonically decaying V (W or Z) boson is presented. The search is performed with proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb^{-1}. Novel charm jet identification and analysis methods using machine learning techniques are employed. The analysis is validated by searching for Z→cc[over ¯] in VZ events, leading to its first observation at a hadron collider with a significance of 5.7 standard deviations. The observed (expected) upper limit on σ(VH)B(H→cc[over ¯]) is 0.94 (0.50_{-0.15}^{+0.22})pb at 95% confidence level (C.L.), corresponding to 14 (7.6_{-2.3}^{+3.4}) times the standard model prediction. For the Higgs-charm Yukawa coupling modifier, κ_{c}, the observed (expected) 95% C.L. interval is 1.1<|κ_{c}|<5.5 (|κ_{c}|<3.4), the most stringent constraint to date.