Search for the Higgs boson decaying to two muons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for the Higgs boson decaying into two muons using CMS data at 13 TeV, setting upper limits on the decay rate and observing no significant excess over background.

Contribution

First search for Higgs to muon pairs at 13 TeV with combined data, providing new upper limits and insights into Higgs decay properties.

Findings

No significant excess observed over background.

Upper limit on Higgs to muon decay is 2.9 times the Standard Model prediction.

Combined data improves sensitivity and constrains Higgs decay to muons.

Abstract

A search for the Higgs boson decaying to two oppositely charged muons is presented using data recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC in 2016 at a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. Data are found to be compatible with the predicted background. For a Higgs boson with a mass of 125.09 GeV, the 95% confidence level observed (background-only expected) upper limit on the production cross section times branching fraction to a pair of muons is found to be 3.0 (2.5) times the standard model expectation. In combination with data recorded at center-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s} =$ 7 and 8 TeV, the background-only expected upper limit improves to 2.2 times the standard model value with a standard model expected significance of 1.0 standard deviations. The corresponding observed upper limit is 2.9 with an observed significance of 0.9 standard deviations. This corresponds to an observed upper limit on the standard model Higgs boson branching fraction to muons of 6.4 $\times$ 10$^{-4}$ and to an observed signal strength of 1.0 $\pm$ 1.0 (stat) $\pm$ 0.1 (syst).