Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson produced in association with a vector boson and decaying to a b-quark pair with the ATLAS detector

摘要

This Letter presents the results of a direct search with the ATLAS detector at the LHC for a Standard Model Higgs boson of mass 110 ? m H ? 130 ? GeV produced in association with a W or Z boson and decaying to b b ˉ . Three decay channels are considered: Z H → ? + ? ? b b ˉ , W H → ? ν b b ˉ and Z H → ν ν ˉ b b ˉ , where ? corresponds to an electron or a muon. No evidence for Higgs boson production is observed in a dataset of 7 ? TeV pp collisions corresponding to 4.7 ? fb ? 1 of integrated luminosity collected by ATLAS in 2011. Exclusion limits on Higgs boson production, at the 95 % confidence level, of 2.5 to 5.5 times the Standard Model cross section are obtained in the mass range 110 – 130 ? GeV . The expected exclusion limits range between 2.5 and 4.9 for the same mass interval.