Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson production in association with top quarks in pp collisions at 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for the production of the Standard Model Higgs boson with top quarks in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV using the ATLAS detector, setting limits on the production rate relative to the Standard Model prediction.

Contribution

It presents the first combined analysis of Higgs production with top quarks in the dilepton and single lepton channels at 8 TeV with ATLAS, providing new limits on the process.

Findings

No significant excess observed.

Observed limit of 4.1 times the SM prediction.

Best fit signal strength of 1.7 ± 1.4.

Abstract

The search for the production of the Higgs boson associated with a pair of top quarks in the ATLAS experiment is presented. It focuses on Higgs bosons decaying to $b\bar{b}$ and events containing two leptons (electrons and/or muons). It uses 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2012. No significant excess of events is found and the 95% CL observed (expected) limit is 7.0xSM (4.3xSM). After combining with the single lepton final state an observed (expected) limit of 4.1xSM (2.6xSM) with a best fit of $\mu=1.7\pm1.4$ is obtained.