Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson Produced in Association with a Vector Boson and Decaying to Bottom Quarks at the CMS Detector

Abstract

A search for the Standard Model Higgs boson produced in association with a W or Z boson and decaying to bottom quarks is presented. A sample of approximately 24 fb<super>-1</super> 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(l&nu;), W(&tau;&nu;), Z(ll), or Z(&nu;&nu;) decay, where l refers to either an electron or a muon. One-prong hadronic decays of the tau particle are selected for in the case of W(&tau;&nu;). Observed signal significance and 95% confidence level upper limits on the production cross section times H(bb) branching fraction, relative to the Standard Model prediction, are presented for the 110-135 GeV Higgs mass range.