A search for associated W and Higgs Boson production in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for associated W and Higgs boson production in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV, using neural networks to analyze data and setting upper limits on production cross sections for Higgs masses between 100 and 150 GeV.

Contribution

The study applies neural network techniques to improve the search for WH production in proton-antiproton collisions, providing new upper limits on the cross section for Higgs masses around 115 GeV.

Findings

No significant excess observed over background.

Set 95% C.L. upper limits on cross section times branching ratio.

Limits are approximately 11 times larger than the Standard Model predictions.

Abstract

We present results of a search for WH -> lepton neutrino b bbar production in ppbar collisions based on the analysis of 1.05 fb-1 of data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, using a neural network for separating the signal from backgrounds. No signal-like excess is observed, and we set 95 % C.L. upper limits on the WH production cross section multiplied by the branching ratio for H->bb for Higgs boson masses between 100 and 150 GeV. For a Higgs boson mass of 115 GeV, we obtain an observed (expected) limit of 1.5 (1.4) pb, a factor of 11.4 (10.7) times larger than standard model prediction.