Measurement of differential and integrated fiducial cross sections for Higgs boson production in the four-lepton decay channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 and 8 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of the Higgs boson production cross sections in the four-lepton decay channel at 7 and 8 TeV, comparing results with Standard Model predictions using CMS data.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed differential and integrated fiducial cross section measurements for Higgs to 4l production at these energies, including new ratios to Z to 4l cross sections.

Findings

Measured integrated fiducial cross sections at 7 and 8 TeV.

Differential cross sections as functions of kinematic variables.

Results are consistent with Standard Model predictions.

Abstract

Integrated fiducial cross sections for the production of four leptons via the H to 4l decays (l = e, mu) are measured in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 and 8 TeV. Measurements are performed with data corresponding to integrated luminosities of 5.1 inverse femtobarns at 7 TeV, and 19.7 inverse femtobarns at 8 TeV, collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC. Differential cross sections are measured using the 8 TeV data, and are determined as functions of the transverse momentum and rapidity of the four-lepton system, accompanying jet multiplicity, transverse momentum of the leading jet, and difference in rapidity between the Higgs boson candidate and the leading jet. A measurement of the Z to 4l cross section, and its ratio to the H to 4l cross section is also performed. All cross sections are measured within a fiducial phase space defined by the requirements on lepton kinematics and event topology. The integrated H to 4l fiducial cross section is measured to be 0.56 +0.67-0.44 (stat) +0.21-0.06 (syst) fb at 7 TeV, and 1.11 +0.41-0.35 (stat) +0.14-0.10 (syst) fb at 8 TeV. The measurements are found to be compatible with theoretical calculations based on the standard model.