CMS-PAS-HIG-24-017

CMS-PAS-HIG-24-017
Search for a boosted Higgs boson decaying to bottom quark pairs in association with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV
CMS Collaboration
27 March 2025

Abstract: A search is conducted for boosted Higgs bosons decaying to bottom quark pairs in association with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson at the LHC (VH). The result is based on a dataset of proton-proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected with the CMS detector from 2016 to 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb $^{-1}$ . The boson decays are reconstructed using large-radius jets and identified using heavy-flavor classifiers based on a Graph Convolutional Neural Network. Dominant backgrounds are estimated using data-driven techniques, and the signal strength for the process is obtained from a likelihood fit to the jet mass distribution of Higgs boson candidates. The same analysis strategy is applied to the associated production of a vector boson decaying into a pair of bottom quarks alongside a hadronically decaying Z boson (VZ) to validate the methodology. The observed signal strengths relative to the standard model expectation are $\mu_{VH}=$ 0.72 $^{+0.75}_{-0.71}$ and $\mu_{VZ}=$ 0.09 $^{+0.63}_{-0.63}$ .
Links: CDS record (PDF) ; CADI line (restricted) ;

Figures & Tables	Summary	References	CMS Publications

Figures
png pdf	Figure 1: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ fail region (left) and pass region (right), both in the region with V candidate mass between (68 GeV to 110 GeV), summed in all data-taking periods.
png pdf	Figure 1-a: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ fail region (left) and pass region (right), both in the region with V candidate mass between (68 GeV to 110 GeV), summed in all data-taking periods.
png pdf	Figure 1-b: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ fail region (left) and pass region (right), both in the region with V candidate mass between (68 GeV to 110 GeV), summed in all data-taking periods.
png pdf	Figure 2: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ pass (upper) and fail (lower) categories, in the region where V candidate falls mass between (40 GeV to 68 GeV) (left) and (110 GeV to 201 GeV)(right), summed in all data-taking periods. These regions are used as sidebands to constrain the (68 GeV to 110 GeV) region, which contains the signal peak. The plots are intended for visualization purposes only. The combined fit is done by combining individual data cards from all data-taking periods in all phase space regions.
png pdf	Figure 2-a: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ pass (upper) and fail (lower) categories, in the region where V candidate falls mass between (40 GeV to 68 GeV) (left) and (110 GeV to 201 GeV)(right), summed in all data-taking periods. These regions are used as sidebands to constrain the (68 GeV to 110 GeV) region, which contains the signal peak. The plots are intended for visualization purposes only. The combined fit is done by combining individual data cards from all data-taking periods in all phase space regions.
png pdf	Figure 2-b: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ pass (upper) and fail (lower) categories, in the region where V candidate falls mass between (40 GeV to 68 GeV) (left) and (110 GeV to 201 GeV)(right), summed in all data-taking periods. These regions are used as sidebands to constrain the (68 GeV to 110 GeV) region, which contains the signal peak. The plots are intended for visualization purposes only. The combined fit is done by combining individual data cards from all data-taking periods in all phase space regions.
png pdf	Figure 2-c: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ pass (upper) and fail (lower) categories, in the region where V candidate falls mass between (40 GeV to 68 GeV) (left) and (110 GeV to 201 GeV)(right), summed in all data-taking periods. These regions are used as sidebands to constrain the (68 GeV to 110 GeV) region, which contains the signal peak. The plots are intended for visualization purposes only. The combined fit is done by combining individual data cards from all data-taking periods in all phase space regions.
png pdf	Figure 2-d: The post-fit Higgs boson candidate $m_\mathrm{SD}$ mass distribution in the $PNet_{Xbb}$ pass (upper) and fail (lower) categories, in the region where V candidate falls mass between (40 GeV to 68 GeV) (left) and (110 GeV to 201 GeV)(right), summed in all data-taking periods. These regions are used as sidebands to constrain the (68 GeV to 110 GeV) region, which contains the signal peak. The plots are intended for visualization purposes only. The combined fit is done by combining individual data cards from all data-taking periods in all phase space regions.

Tables
png pdf	Table 1: Fitted signal strength and the total uncertainty is shown for the VH and VZ processes for each data-taking period and for the full data set.

Summary

A search for Higgs bosons with high transverse momentum (

$p_{\mathrm{T}} >$ 450 GeV) decaying to bottom quark pairs in association with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson at the LHC is performed. The analysis strategy is additionally validated on boosted hadronically decaying

$\mathrm{V}\mathrm{Z}(bb)$ events. The signal strengths for both the VH and VZ processes are extracted simultaneously from a maximum likelihood fit to the data in the large-radius jet mass distribution. The observed(expected) standard model significance is 1.00 (1.64)

$\sigma$ for V(qq)H(bb) and 0.15 (1.76)

$\sigma$ for V(qq)Z(bb). The corresponding observed signal strength relative to the standard model expectation is

$\mu_{\mathrm{V}\mathrm{H}}=$ 0.72

$^{+0.75}_{-0.71}$ ,

$\mu_{\mathrm{V}\mathrm{Z}}=$ 0.09

$^{+0.63}_{-0.63}$ .

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