Search for heavy resonances that decay into a vector boson and a Higgs boson in hadronic final states at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for heavy resonances above 1 TeV decaying into a vector boson and a Higgs boson in hadronic final states, using 13 TeV proton-proton collision data from CMS, setting new limits up to 3.3 TeV.

Contribution

First search to exclude heavy vector resonances decaying into a vector boson and Higgs boson at masses up to 3.3 TeV using hadronic decay channels.

Findings

No significant excess observed over background.

Excluded resonance masses up to 3.3 TeV at 95% CL.

Set the most stringent limits to date on such resonances.

Abstract

A search for heavy resonances with masses above 1 TeV, decaying to final states containing a vector boson and a Higgs boson, is presented. The search considers hadronic decays of the vector boson, and Higgs boson decays to b quarks. The decay products are highly boosted, and each collimated pair of quarks is reconstructed as a single, massive jet. The analysis is performed using a data sample collected in 2016 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 inverse femtobarns. The data are consistent with the background expectation and are used to place limits on the parameters of a theoretical model with a heavy vector triplet. In the benchmark scenario with mass-degenerate W' and Z' bosons decaying predominantly to pairs of standard model bosons, for the first time heavy resonances for masses as high as 3.3 TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level, setting the most stringent limit to date on such states decaying into a vector boson and a Higgs boson.