Flavour Independent Search for Neutral Higgs Bosons at LEP

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for neutral Higgs bosons at LEP that does not depend on their flavor, setting mass limits and coupling constraints based on data from 189 to 209 GeV.

Contribution

It presents a flavor-independent search for neutral Higgs bosons at LEP, establishing new mass limits and coupling constraints without assuming specific decay modes.

Findings

No significant Higgs signal observed.

Lower mass limit of 110.3 GeV for the Higgs boson.

Constraints on Higgs couplings to Z and A bosons.

Abstract

A flavour independent search for the CP-even and CP-odd neutral Higgs bosons h and A is performed in 624/pb of data collected with the L3 detector at LEP at centre-of-mass energies between 189 and 209GeV. Higgs boson production through the e^+e^- -> Z h and the e^+e^- ->h A processes is considered and decays of the Higgs bosons into hadrons are studied. No significant signal is observed and 95% confidence level limits on the hZZ and hAZ couplings are derived as a function of the Higgs boson masses. Assuming the Standard Model cross section for the Higgs-strahlung process and a 100% branching fraction into hadrons, a 95% confidence level lower limit on the mass of the Higgs boson is set at 110.3GeV.