Search for neutral Higgs bosons decaying into four taus at LEP2

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for a non-standard Higgs decay into four taus at LEP2, setting limits on production cross sections and branching ratios with no observed excess.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental limits on Higgs decaying into four taus via intermediate pseudoscalars at LEP2 energies.

Findings

No excess events observed above background.

Excluded certain Higgs mass and pseudoscalar mass ranges at 95% confidence level.

Abstract

A search for the production and non-standard decay of a Higgs boson, h, into four taus through intermediate pseudoscalars, a, is conducted on 683 pb-1 of data collected by the ALEPH experiment at centre-of-mass energies from 183 to 209 GeV. No excess of events above background is observed, and exclusion limits are placed on the combined production cross section times branching ratio, \xi^2 = \sigma(e+e- --> Zh)/\sigma_{SM}(e+e- --> Zh) x B(h --> aa)x B(a --> \tau^+\tau^-)^2. For mh < 107 GeV/c2 and 4 < ma < 10 GeV/c2, \xi^2 > 1 is excluded at the 95% confidence level.