Search for a light Higgs boson decaying to two gluons or ss-bar in the radiative decays of Y(1S)

TL;DR

This study searches for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson in radiative Y(1S) decays, setting upper limits on its production and decay rates due to no observed significant signal.

Contribution

First search for a light Higgs boson decaying into gluons or strange quark pairs in Y(1S) radiative decays, providing new upper limits on its branching fractions.

Findings

No significant signal observed.

Set upper limits on product branching fractions from 10^-6 to 10^-2.

Mass range explored from 0.5 to 9.0 GeV/c^2.

Abstract

We search for the decay Y(1S) -> gamma A0, A0 -> gg or ss-bar, where A0 is the pseudoscalar light Higgs boson predicted by the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model. We use a sample of (17.6 +- 0.3)x 10^6 Y(1S) mesons produced in the BaBar experiment via e+e- -> Y(2S) -> pi+pi-Y(1S). We see no significant signal and set 90%-confidence-level upper limits on the product branching fraction B(Y(1S) -> gamma A0) x B(A0 -> gg or ss-bar) ranging from 10^-6 to 10^-2 for A0 masses in the range 0.5 to 9.0GeV/c^2.