Search for Non-resonant Higgs Boson Pair Production in the Four Bottom Quark Decay Channel With the CMS Experiment

Thesis/Dissertation · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2021

OSTI ID:1865356

Guerrero Ibarra, Guerrero Fernando  ^[1]

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1. Florida U.

This dissertation presents a search for non-resonant Higgs boson pair production, focusing on the four bottom quark decay channel. It explores the gluon fusion and vector boson fusion production mechanisms. The analysis is performed with a dataset of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected by the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of around 138 inverse femtobarns. Innovative techniques in the areas of object identification, event categorization, signal identification, and background modeling are used to maximize the analysis sensitivity. No excess of signal events are observed relative to the background-only expectation, and 95% CL upper limits on the production cross section are set. The observed upper limit on the standard model production cross section is set at 3.6 times the theoretical expectation. At the time of writing this dissertation, it is the most stringent constraint at the LHC from an individual channel. Furthermore, the observed constraint on the coupling modifier of the Higgs boson self-interaction is set between -2.3 and 9.4. The observed constraint on the coupling modifier of the di-vector-boson-di-Higgs-boson interaction is set between -0.1 and 2.2.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1865356
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-THESIS-2021-45; oai:inspirehep.net:2069122
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English