Search for bottom quark associated production of the standard model Higgs boson in final states with leptons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports the first search for Higgs boson production associated with bottom quarks in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, focusing on final states with leptons, and sets upper limits on the production rate.

Contribution

It introduces the first experimental search for bottom quark associated Higgs production with leptonic final states at 13 TeV.

Findings

Upper limit on signal strength is 3.7 times the SM prediction.

Analysis uses 138 fb$^{-1}$ of data from CMS.

No significant excess observed over the Standard Model expectation.

Abstract

This Letter presents the first search for bottom quark associated production of the standard model Higgs boson, in final states with leptons. Higgs boson decays to pairs of tau leptons and pairs of leptonically decaying W bosons are considered. The search is performed using data collected from 2016 to 2018 by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are placed on the signal strength for Higgs boson production in association with bottom quarks; the observed (expected) upper limit is 3.7 (6.1) times the standard model prediction.