Higgs to Four Taus at ALEPH

Abstract

A search has been performed on 683 pb$^{-1}$ of data collected by the ALEPH detector at the Large Electron-Positron (LEP), collider at centre-of-mass energies from 183 to 209 $\mathrm{GeV}$ looking for a Higgs boson decaying into four $\tau$ leptons via intermediate pseudoscalar $a$ particles, for a Higgs mass range of 70 to 114 $\mathrm{GeV} / c^2$ and an $a$ mass range of 4 to 12 $\mathrm{GeV} / c^2$. No excess above background is seen and a limit is placed on $\xi^2 = \frac{\sigma(e^+ e^-\ra Z+h)}{\sigma_{SM}(e^+ e^-\ra Z+h)}\times(h\ra aa)\times(a\ra \tau^+\tau^-)^2$ in the $m_h, m_a$ plane. For $m_h < 107 \; \mathrm{GeV} / c^2$ and $m_a < 10 \; \mathrm{GeV} / c^2$, $\xi^2 > 1$ can be excluded at the 95\% confidence level.