Search for the SM Higgs Boson Produced in Association with a Vector Boson and Decaying to Bottom Quarks

Abstract

A search for the Higgs boson produced in association with a W or Z boson and decaying to bottom quarks is presented. A sample of approximately 24/fb of data recorded by the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, operating at center-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV in 2011 and 2012, respectively, is used to search for events consistent with the signature of two b jets recoiling with high momentum from a W(lnu), Z(ll), or Z(nunu) decay, where l = electron or muon (or hadronically-decaying tau particle in the case of W bosons). Observed signal significance and 95% confidence level upper limits on the production cross section relative to the Standard Model prediction are presented for the 110-135 GeV Higgs mass range.