Search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a W or a Z boson and decaying to bottom quarks

摘要

A search for the standard model Higgs boson (H) decaying to b b-bar whenproduced in association with a weak vector boson (V) is reported for thefollowing channels: W(mu nu)H, W(e nu)H, W(tau nu)H, Z(mu mu)H, Z(e e)H, andZ(nu nu)H. The search is performed in data samples corresponding to integratedluminosities of up to 5.1 inverse femtobarns at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and up to 18.9inverse femtobarns at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded by the CMS experiment at theLHC. An excess of events is observed above the expected background with a localsignificance of 2.1 standard deviations for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV,consistent with the expectation from the production of the standard model Higgsboson. The signal strength corresponding to this excess, relative to that ofthe standard model Higgs boson, is 1.0 +/- 0.5.