Search for Associated Production of Massive States Decaying into Two Photonsin e+e- Annihilations at sqrt(s) = 88-209 GeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for short-lived particles decaying into two photons in electron-positron collisions at energies between 88 and 209 GeV, setting limits on production cross sections and interpreting results in fermiophobic Higgs models.

Contribution

It provides model-independent limits on production cross sections for new particles and establishes a lower mass limit for a fermiophobic Higgs boson at 105.5 GeV.

Findings

Limits of 25-60 femtobarns on production cross sections.

No evidence of new particles found within the analyzed energy range.

Lower mass limit of 105.5 GeV for fermiophobic Higgs boson.

Abstract

A search is performed for production of short-lived particles in e+e- -> XY, with X -> gamma gamma and Y -> ffbar, for scalar X and scalar or vector Y. Model-independent limits in the range of 25-60 femtobarns are presented on sigma (e+e- -> XY) x B(X -> ffbar) for centre-of-mass energies in the range 205-207 GeV. The data from all LEP centre-of-mass energies 88-209 GeV are also interpreted in the context of fermiophobic Higgs boson models, for which a lower mass limit of 105.5 GeV is obtained for a "benchmark" fermiophobic Higgs boson.