Search for exotic decays of the Higgs boson into bb̅ and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Centre Authors: Barberio, E. L., Jackson, P., Kong, A., McDonald, E., McNamara, P., Potti, H., Ruggeri, T., Scutti, F., Taylor, G., Urquijo, P., White, M.

A search for the exotic decay of the Higgs boson (H) into a bb̅ resonance plus missing transverse momentum is described. The search is performed with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider using 139 fb−1 of pp collisions at s = 13 TeV. The search targets events from ZH production in an NMSSM scenario where H χ20χ10, with χ20aχ0, where α is a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson and χ1,20 are the two lightest neutralinos. The decay of the a boson into a pair of b-quarks results in a peak in the dijet invariant mass distribution. The final-state signature consists of two leptons, two or more jets, at least one of which is identified as originating from a b-quark, and missing transverse momentum. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations and upper limits are set on the product of cross section times branching ratio for a three-dimensional scan of the masses of the χ20, χ10 and α boson.

Published: Jan, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2022)063