Search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson produced in association with bottom quarks in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson produced with bottom quarks and decaying into muons, using CMS data at 8 TeV, setting upper limits due to no observed signal.

Contribution

First search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs in association with bottom quarks decaying to muons at 8 TeV with CMS data.

Findings

No signal observed in the 25-60 GeV mass range.

Upper limits set on production cross section times branching fraction.

Results constrain models predicting light pseudoscalar Higgs bosons.

Abstract

A search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson (A) produced in association with bottom quarks and decaying into a muon pair is reported. The search uses 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment. No signal is observed in the dimuon mass range from 25 to 60 GeV. Upper limits on the cross section times branching fraction, sigma(pp to b bbar A) B(A to mu mu), are set.