Search for the decay of the Higgs boson to a pair of light pseudoscalar bosons in the final state with four bottom quarks in proton-proton collisions at $$ \sqrt{\textrm{s}} $$ = 13 TeV

A bstract A search is presented for the decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson (H) to a pair of new light pseudoscalar bosons (a), followed by the prompt decay of each a boson to a bottom quark-antiquark pair, $$ \textrm{H}\to \textrm{aa}\to \textrm{b}\overline{\textrm{b}}\textrm{b}\overline{\textrm{b}} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:mo>→</mml:mo> <mml:mi>aa</mml:mi> <mml:mo>→</mml:mo> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:math> . The analysis is performed using a data sample of proton-proton collisions collected with the CMS detector at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb − 1 . To reduce the background from standard model processes, the search requires the Higgs boson to be produced in association with a leptonically decaying W or Z boson. The analysis probes the production of new light bosons in a 15 &lt; m a &lt; 60 GeV mass range. Assuming the standard model predictions for the Higgs boson production cross sections for pp → WH and ZH, model independent upper limits at 95% confidence level are derived for the branching fraction $$ \mathcal{B}\left(\textrm{H}\to \textrm{aa}\to \textrm{b}\overline{\textrm{b}}\textrm{b}\overline{\textrm{b}}\right) $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:mfenced> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:mo>→</mml:mo> <mml:mi>aa</mml:mi> <mml:mo>→</mml:mo> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> <mml:mo>¯</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:mrow> </mml:mfenced> </mml:math> . The combined WH and ZH observed upper limit on the branching fraction ranges from 1.10 for m a = 20 GeV to 0.36 for m a = 60 GeV, complementing other measurements in the μμττ , ττττ and bb ℓℓ ( ℓ = μ , τ ) channels.

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