Search for Standard Model Higgs Boson Production in Association with a W Boson at CDF

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for the Standard Model Higgs boson produced with a W boson in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV, using CDF II data, setting upper limits on production cross sections.

Contribution

First search for W-Higgs associated production at CDF with advanced jet tagging and neural network techniques.

Findings

No significant excess observed over background.

Set upper limits on cross section times branching ratio.

Limits range from 3.9 to 1.3 pb for Higgs masses 110-150 GeV/c2.

Abstract

We present a search for standard model Higgs boson production in association with a W boson in proton-antiproton collisions ($p\bar{p}\to W^\pm H \to \ell\nu b\bar{b}$) at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The search employs data collected with the CDF II detector which correspond to an integrated luminosity of approximately 1 fb-1. We select events consistent with a signature of a single lepton ($e^\pm/\mu^\pm$), missing transverse energy, and two jets. Jets corresponding to bottom quarks are identified with a secondary vertex tagging method and a neural network filter technique. The observed number of events and the dijet mass distributions are consistent with the standard model background expectations, and we set 95% confidence level upper limits on the production cross section times branching ratio ranging from 3.9 to 1.3 pb for Higgs boson masses from 110 to 150 GeV/c2, respectively.