Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson produced in association with a vector boson and decaying to a b-quark pair with the ATLAS detector

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in association with a vector boson decaying to b-quark pairs, using ATLAS data, setting exclusion limits but not observing a signal.

Contribution

First search for Higgs boson production with vector bosons decaying to bb in the 110-130 GeV range at 7 TeV with ATLAS, providing exclusion limits.

Findings

No evidence of Higgs production observed.

Exclusion limits range from 2.5 to 5.5 times the Standard Model prediction.

Limits are consistent with expectations.

Abstract

This Letter presents the results of a direct search with the ATLAS detector at the LHC for a Standard Model Higgs boson of mass 110 < m(H) < 130 GeV produced in association with a W or Z boson and decaying to bb. Three decay channels are considered: ZH->llbb, WH->lvbb, and ZH->vvbb, where l corresponds to an electron or a muon. No evidence for Higgs boson production is observed in a dataset of 7 TeV pp collisions corresponding to 4.7/fb of integrated luminosity collected by ATLAS in 2011. Exclusion limits on Higgs boson production, at the 95% confidence level, of 2.5 to 5.5 times the Standard Model cross section are obtained in the mass range 110 - 130 GeV. The expected exclusion limits range between 2.5 and 4.9 for the same mass interval.