Evidence for a Particle Produced in Association with Weak Bosons and Decaying to a Bottom-Antibottom Quark Pair in Higgs Boson Searches at the Tevatron

Abstract

WecombinesearchesbytheCDFandD0CollaborationsfortheassociatedproductionofaHiggs bosonwithaWorZbosonandsubsequentdecayoftheHiggsbosontoabottom-antibottomquarkpair. Thedata,originatingfromFermilabTevatronppcollisionsatffisffiffi p 1:96TeV,correspondtointegrated luminositiesofupto9:7fb1.ThesearchesareconductedforaHiggsbosonwithmassintherange PRL109,071804(2012)PHYSICALREVIEWLETTERS weekending 17AUGUST2012 071804-5 10050GeV=c2.Weobserveanexcessofeventsinthedatacomparedwiththebackgroundpredictions, whichismostsignificantinthemassrangebetween120and135GeV=c2.Thelargestlocalsignificance is3.3standarddeviations,correspondingtoaglobalsignificanceof3.1standarddeviations. WeinterpretthisasevidenceforthepresenceofanewparticleconsistentwiththestandardmodelHiggs boson,whichisproducedinassociationwithaweakvectorbosonanddecaystoabottom-antibottom quarkpair.