Search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced via vector boson fusion in proton-proton collisions at s =13 TeV

(CMS Collaboration)

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69 Scopus citations

Abstract

A search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced via vector boson fusion (VBF) has been performed with 101 fb-1 of proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC at s=13 TeV and collected by the CMS detector in 2017 and 2018. The sensitivity to the VBF production mechanism is enhanced by constructing two analysis categories, one based on missing transverse momentum and a second based on the properties of jets. In addition to control regions with Z and W boson candidate events, a highly populated control region, based on the production of a photon in association with jets, is used to constrain the dominant irreducible background from the invisible decay of a Z boson produced in association with jets. The results of this search are combined with all previous measurements in the VBF topology, based on data collected in 2012 (at s=8 TeV), 2015, and 2016, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 19.7, 2.3, and 36.3 fb-1, respectively. The observed (expected) upper limit on the invisible branching fraction of the Higgs boson is found to be 0.18 (0.10) at the 95% confidence level, assuming the standard model production cross section. The results are also interpreted in the context of Higgs-portal models.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number092007
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume105
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We congratulate our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC and thank the technical and administrative staffs at CERN and at other CMS institutes for their contributions to the success of the CMS effort. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the computing centers and personnel of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid and other centers for delivering so effectively the computing infrastructure essential to our analyses. Finally, we acknowledge the enduring support for the construction and operation of the LHC, the CMS detector, and the supporting computing infrastructure provided by the following funding agencies: BMBWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, FAPERGS, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES and BNSF (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); MINCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES and CSF (Croatia); RIF (Cyprus); SENESCYT (Ecuador); MoER, ERC PUT, and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRI (Greece); NKFIA (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); MSIP and NRF (Republic of Korea); MES (Latvia); LAS (Lithuania); MOE and UM (Malaysia); BUAP, CINVESTAV, CONACYT, LNS, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MOS (Montenegro); MBIE (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Dubna); MON, RosAtom, RAS, RFBR, and NRC KI (Russia); MESTD (Serbia); MCIN/AEI and PCTI (Spain); MOSTR (Sri Lanka); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); MST (Taipei); ThEPCenter, IPST, STAR, and NSTDA (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and Horizon 2020 Grant, Grants No. 675440, No. 724704, No. 752730, No. 758316, No. 765710, No. 824093, and No. 884104, and COST Action CA16108 (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the F. R. S.-FNRS and FWO (Belgium) under the “Excellence of Science—EOS“—be.h Project No. 30820817; the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, Grant No. Z191100007219010; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2121 “Quantum Universe”—Grant No. 390833306, and under Project No. 400140256—GRK2497; the Lendület (“Momentum”) Program and the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the New National Excellence Program ÚNKP, the NKFIA research Grants No. 123842, No. 123959, No. 124845, No. 124850, No. 125105, No. 128713, No. 128786, and No. 129058 (Hungary); the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Latvian Council of Science; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Center, Contracts Opus 2014/15/B/ST2/03998 and 2015/19/B/ST2/02861 (Poland); the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Grant No. CEECIND/01334/2018 (Portugal); the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Projects No. 0723-2020-0041 and No. FSWW-2020-0008, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Project No. 19-42-703014 (Russia); Grant No. MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, ERDF “a way of making Europe,” and the Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia María de Maeztu, Grant No. MDM-2017-0765, and Programa Severo Ochoa del Principado de Asturias (Spain); the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Greece); the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University, and the Chulalongkorn Academic into its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand); the Kavli Foundation; the Nvidia Corporation; the SuperMicro Corporation; the Welch Foundation, Contract No. C-1845; and the Weston Havens Foundation (USA).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 CERN.

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