Search for single production of vector-like quarks decaying to a b quark and a Higgs boson
BMWFW (Austria) ; FWF (Austria) ; FNRS (Belgium) ; FWO (Belgium) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) ; MES (Bulgaria) ; CERN ; CAS (China) ; MoST (China) ; NSFC (China) ; COLCIENCIAS (Colombia) ; MSES (Croatia) ; CSF (Croatia) ; RPF (Cyprus) ; SENESCYT (Ecuador) ; MoER (Estonia) ; ERC IUT (Estonia) ; ERDF (Estonia) ; Academy of Finland (Finland) ; MEC (Finland) ; HIP (Finland) ; CEA (France) ; CNRS/IN2P3 (France) ; BMBF (Germany) ; DFG (Germany) ; HGF (Germany) ; GSRT (Greece) ; OTKA (Hungary) ; NIH (Hungary) ; DAE (India) ; DST (India) ; IPM (Iran) ; SFI (Ireland) ; INFN (Italy) ; MSIP (Republic of Korea) ; NRF (Republic of Korea) ; LAS (Lithuania) ; MOE (Malaysia) ; UM (Malaysia) ; BUAP (Mexico) ; CINVESTAV (Mexico) ; CONACYT (Mexico) ; LNS (Mexico) ; SEP (Mexico) ; UASLP-FAI (Mexico) ; MBIE (New Zealand) ; PAEC (Pakistan) ; MSHE (Poland) ; NSC (Poland) ; FCT (Portugal) ; JINR (Dubna) ; MON (Russia) ; RosAtom (Russia) ; RAS (Russia) ; RFBR (Russia) ; RAEP (Russia) ; MESTD (Serbia) ; SEIDI (Spain) ; CPAN (Spain) ; PCTI (Spain) ; FEDER (Spain) ; Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland) ; MST (Taipei) ; ThEPCenter (Thailand) ; IPST (Thailand) ; STAR (Thailand) ; NSTDA (Thailand) ; TUBITAK (Turkey) ; TAEK (Turkey) ; NASU (Ukraine) ; SFFR (Ukraine) ; STFC (United Kingdom) ; DOE (U.S.A.) ; NSF (U.S.A.) ; Marie-Curie program ; European Research Council ; Horizon 2020 Grant ; Leventis Foundation ; A. P. Sloan Foundation ; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation ; Belgian Federal Science Policy Office ; Fonds pour la Formation a la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium) ; Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium) ; F.R.S.-FNRS ; FWO (Belgium) under the Excellence of Science - EOS - be.h project ; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic ; Council of Science and Industrial Research, India ; HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science - European Union, Regional Development Fund ; Ministry of Science and Higher Education ; National Science Center (Poland) ; National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund ; Programa Severo Ochoa del Principado de Asturias ; Thalis program - EU-ESF ; Aristeia program - EU-ESF ; Greek NSRF ; Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University ; Chulalongkorn Academic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand) ; Welch Foundation ; Weston Havens Foundation (U.S.A.) ; Horizon 2020 Grant: 675440 ; FWO (Belgium) under the Excellence of Science - EOS - be.h project: 30820817 ; National Science Center (Poland): Harmonia 2014/14/M/ST2/00428 ; National Science Center (Poland): Opus 2014/13/B/ST2/02543 ; National Science Center (Poland): 2014/15/B/ST2/03998 ; National Science Center (Poland): 2015/19/B/ST2/02861 ; National Science Center (Poland): Sonata-bis 2012/07/E/ST2/01406 ; Welch Foundation: C-1845 ; A search is presented for single production of heavy vector-like quarks (B) that decay to a Higgs boson and a b quark, with the Higgs boson decaying to a highly boosted b (b) over bar pair reconstructed as a single collimated jet. The analysis is based on data collected by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1). The data are consistent with background expectations, and upper limits at 95% confidence level on the product of the B quark cross section and the branching fraction are obtained in the range 1.28-0.07 pb, for a narrow B quark with a mass between 700 and 1800 GeV. The production of B quarks with widths of 10, 20 and 30% of the resonance mass is also considered, and the sensitivities obtained are similar to those achieved in the narrow width case. This is the first search at the CERN LHC for the single production of a B quark through its fully hadronic decay channel, and the first study considering finite resonance widths of the B quark.