CMS-PAS-HIG-24-003

CMS-PAS-HIG-24-003
Search for associated production of a Higgs boson and of two vector bosons via vector boson scattering
CMS Collaboration
2025-07-07

Abstract: A search for the production of a Higgs boson in association with two vector bosons via vector boson scattering is presented. The search uses CMS data from proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 13 TeV collected from 2016 to 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$ ^{-1} $. Selected events are consistent with the presence of two jets originating from vector boson scattering and a Higgs boson decaying into a pair of b quarks, reconstructed as a single large-cone jet, while final states with 0, 1 or 2 charged leptons coming from the decays of the two vector bosons are studied. The study constrains the quartic $ \mathrm{VVHH} $ coupling strength relative to the standard model, $ \kappa_\mathrm{2V} $, in the observed (expected) range [0.40, 1.60] ([0.34, 1.66]) at 95% confidence level when the other Higgs boson couplings are fixed to their SM values. The process is also sensitive to the $ \mathrm{WWHH} $ and $ \mathrm{ZZHH} $ quartic couplings independently, whose strengths relative to the standard model are constrained in the observed (expected) ranges [0.17, 1.84] ([0.11, 1.89]) and [$-$0.37, 2.38] ([$-$0.54, 2.54]), for $ \kappa_\mathrm{2W} $ and $ \kappa_\mathrm{2Z} $ respectively. A two-dimensional scan is performed to determine exclusion regions in the $ \kappa_\mathrm{2W}-\kappa_\mathrm{2Z} $ plane.
Links: CDS record (PDF) ; CADI line (restricted) ; These preliminary results are superseded in this paper, Accepted by PRL. The superseded preliminary plots can be found here.

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