Search for a massive resonance decaying into a Higgs boson and a W or Z boson in hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for heavy resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a W or Z boson in hadronic final states at 8 TeV, using jet substructure techniques to identify boosted decay products, setting limits on W' and Z' production.

Contribution

First search for heavy resonances decaying into HW or HZ in all-jet final states using advanced jet substructure techniques at the LHC.

Findings

No significant signal observed.

Excluded resonance masses for W' and Z' within specific mass ranges.

Set 95% confidence level limits on production cross sections.

Abstract

A search for a massive resonance decaying into a standard-model-like Higgs boson (H) and a W or Z boson is reported. The analysis is performed on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns, collected in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. Signal events, in which the decay products of Higgs, W, or Z bosons at high Lorentz boost are contained within single reconstructed jets, are identified using jet substructure techniques, including the tagging of b hadrons. This is the first search for heavy resonances decaying into HW or HZ resulting in an all-jet final state, as well as the first application of jet substructure techniques to identify H to WW* to 4q decays at high Lorentz boost. No significant signal is observed and limits are set at 95% confidence level on the production cross section of W' and Z' in a model with mass-degenerate charged and neutral spin-1 resonances. Resonance masses are excluded for W' in the interval [1.0, 1.6] TeV, for Z' in the intervals [1.0, 1.1] and [1.3, 1.5] TeV, and for mass-degenerate W' and Z' in the interval [1.0, 1.7] TeV.