Limits on neutral Higgs boson production in the forward region in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports on setting upper limits for neutral Higgs boson production decaying to tau pairs in the forward region at 7 TeV proton-proton collisions, using LHCb data, and compares results to Standard Model and MSSM expectations.

Contribution

First to provide model-independent upper limits on neutral Higgs boson production in the forward region at 7 TeV with LHCb data.

Findings

Upper limits on cross-section times branching fraction range from 8.6 pb to 0.7 pb.

Limits on $ aneta$ range from 34 to 70 depending on Higgs mass.

Results are compared to Standard Model and MSSM predictions.

Abstract

Limits on the cross-section times branching fraction for neutral Higgs bosons, produced in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV, and decaying to two tau leptons with pseudorapidities between 2.0 and 4.5, are presented. The result is based on a dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$, collected with the LHCb detector. Candidates are identified by reconstructing final states with two muons, a muon and an electron, a muon and a hadron, or an electron and a hadron. A model independent upper limit at the 95% confidence level is set on a neutral Higgs boson cross-section times branching fraction. It varies from 8.6 pb for a Higgs boson mass of 90 GeV to 0.7 pb for a Higgs boson mass of 250 GeV, and is compared to the Standard Model expectation. An upper limit on $\tan\beta$ in the Minimal Supersymmetric Model is set in the $m_{h^0}^\mathrm{max}$ scenario. It ranges from 34 for a CP-odd Higgs boson mass of 90 GeV to 70 for a pseudo-scalar Higgs boson mass of 140 GeV.