Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to tau pairs in proton-proton collisions at the LHC, setting exclusion limits without observing a significant excess.

Contribution

It presents the first search including Higgs production with b-quark jets and provides new exclusion limits in various MSSM parameter scenarios.

Findings

No excess observed in tau-pair invariant mass spectrum

Exclusion limits set on MSSM Higgs production cross sections

Constraints provided for multiple MSSM benchmark scenarios

Abstract

A search for neutral Higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM) decaying to tau-lepton pairs in pp collisions is performed, using events recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 24.6 inverse femtobarns, with 4.9 inverse femtobarns at 7 TeV and 19.7 inverse femtobarns at 8 TeV. To enhance the sensitivity to neutral MSSM Higgs bosons, the search includes the case where the Higgs boson is produced in association with a b-quark jet. No excess is observed in the tau-lepton-pair invariant mass spectrum. Exclusion limits are presented in the MSSM parameter space for different benchmark scenarios, m[h,max}, m[h,mod+], m[h,mod-], light-stop, light-stau, tau-phobic, and low-m[H]. Upper limits on the cross section times branching fraction for gluon fusion and b-quark associated Higgs boson production are also given.