Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/21539
Title: Evidence for the direct decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to fermions
Authors: The CMS Collaboration
Keywords: experimental particle physics
Issue Date: 22-Jun-2014
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Citation: Nature Physics, 2014, 10 (8), pp. 557 - 560
Abstract: The discovery of a new boson with a mass of approximately 125 GeV in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider1,2,3 has heralded a new era in understanding the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking and possibly completing the standard model of particle physics4,5,6,7,8,9. Since the first observation in decays to γγ, WW and ZZ boson pairs, an extensive set of measurements of the mass10,11 and couplings to W and Z bosons11,12,13, as well as multiple tests of the spin-parity quantum numbers10,11,13,14, have revealed that the properties of the new boson are consistent with those of the long-sought agent responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. An important open question is whether the new particle also couples to fermions, and in particular to down-type fermions, as the current measurements mainly constrain the couplings to the up-type top quark. Determination of the couplings to down-type fermions requires direct measurement of the corresponding Higgs boson decays, as recently reported by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment in the study of Higgs decays to bottom quarks15 and τ leptons16. Here, we report the combination of these two channels, which results in strong evidence for the direct coupling of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to down-type fermions, with an observed significance of 3.8 standard deviations, when 4.4 are expected.
URI: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/21539
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys3005
ISSN: 1745-2473
1745-2481
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