Search for WH associated production in 5.3 fb?1 of p p ˉ collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron

摘要

We present a search for associated production of Higgs and W bosons in p p ˉ collisions at a center of mass energy of s = 1.96 ? TeV in 5.3 fb ?1 of integrated luminosity recorded by the D0 experiment. Multivariate analysis techniques are applied to events containing one lepton, an imbalance in transverse energy, and one or two b -tagged jets to discriminate a potential WH signal from Standard Model backgrounds. We observe good agreement between data and expected backgrounds, and set an upper limit of 4.5 (at 95% confidence level and for m H = 115 ? GeV ) on the ratio of the WH cross section multiplied by the branching fraction of H → b b ˉ to its Standard Model prediction, which is consistent with an expected limit of 4.8.