Observation of Higgs boson decays to $\tau$ lepton pairs

TL;DR

This paper reports the observation of Higgs boson decays to tau lepton pairs with high statistical significance, confirming a key prediction of the Standard Model using CMS data at 13 TeV.

Contribution

First observation of Higgs decays to tau leptons at 13 TeV with detailed analysis of CMS data, strengthening evidence for the Higgs mechanism.

Findings

Observed excess with 4.9 sigma significance

Measured Higgs to tau tau decay rate consistent with Standard Model

Confirmed Higgs boson coupling to tau leptons

Abstract

A search for Higgs boson decays to $\tau$ leptons is performed using events recorded in proton-proton collisions by the CMS experiment at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 $fb^{-1}$. An excess of events is observed over the expected background prediction with a significance of 4.9 standard deviations, to be compared to an expected significance of 4.7 standard deviations.