Search for the 125 GeV Standard Model Higgs Boson Decaying Via H→WW→lνjj at √s = 8 TeV
Abstract
The Higgs boson discovery was announced on July 4th, 2012. It was measured to have a mass of 125.7 ± 0.3 (stat) ± 0.3 (syst) GeV and since then boson has been seen in many decay paths, including the H→γγ, H→ZZ→4l, H→τ τ, and H→W⁺W⁻→lνlν channels. However, no one has looked for the boson at this mass using the H→W⁺W⁻→lνjj decay channel. This dissertation presents a search for the ∼125 GeV Higgs in semi-leptonic W decays using both traditional kinematically discriminating variables as well as a matrix element technique. The data for this analysis was collected in 2012 by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and amounts to 19.7 fb⁻¹ of proton-proton collisions at a center of mass energy of 8 TeV. Although this analysis presents a step forward in complexity, we were still not able to see a significant excess above the standard model background prediction. However, we were able to set an upper limit of 5.4 on σ/σSM at the 95% confidence level for the semi-leptonic W decay of the Higgs boson. These represent some of the first such limits recorded.
Subject
Higgs bosonphysics
HEP
matrix element method
boosted decision tree
LHC
CMS
large hadron collider
compact muon solenoid
CERN
Citation
Perloff, Alexx S. (2018). Search for the 125 GeV Standard Model Higgs Boson Decaying Via H→WW→lνjj at √s = 8 TeV. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A & M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /173472.