Combined search for anomalous pseudoscalar HVV couplings in VH(H→bb‾) production and H → VV decay

Abstract

Open Access funded by SCOAP³ - Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics.-- et al. ; A search for anomalous pseudoscalar couplings of the Higgs boson H to electroweak vector bosons V (=W or Z) in a sample of proton–proton collision events corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 18.9 fb−1 at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV is presented. Events consistent with the topology of associated VH production, where the Higgs boson decays to a pair of bottom quarks and the vector boson decays leptonically, are analyzed. The consistency of data with a potential pseudoscalar contribution to the HVV interaction, expressed by the effective pseudoscalar cross section fractions fa3, is assessed by means of profile likelihood scans. Results are given for the VH channels alone and for a combined analysis of the VH and previously published H→VV channels. Under certain assumptions, f >0.0034 is excluded at 95% confidence level in the combination. Scenarios in which these assumptions are relaxed are also considered. ; Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie pro-gramme and the European Research Council and EPLANET (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 Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS programme of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund; the OPUS programme of the National Science Centre(Poland); the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); MIUR project 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programmes cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand); the Chulalongkorn Academic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand); and the Welch Foundation, contract C-1845. ; Funded by SCOAP3. ; Peer Reviewed