Standard Higgs Boson Searches at LEP 2

Abstract

For the first time at LEP most of the events will have four fermions in the finals state and we have the unique opportunity of testing a complete calculation with the experimental data, well beyond the usual approximation of computing production cross section times branching ratios of Higgs into decay products. Calculation of the total cross sections and of different kinds of differential distributions at the partonic level are made available to access the widest information for choosing cuts, for discussing the physics of a standard Higgs boson with a mass around 90 GeV where the Higgs and the Z signal become degenerate and for a comprehensive analysis of the various background components.