Evidence for associated production of a Higgs boson with a top quark pair in final states with electrons, muons, and hadronically decaying τ leptons at √s = 13 TeV

• Main Authors: CMS Collaboration (Author), Abercrombie, Daniel Robert (Contributor), Allen, Brandon Leigh (Contributor), Azzolini, Virginia (Contributor), Barbieri, Richard Alexander (Contributor), Baty, Austin Alan (Contributor), Bauer, Gerry P (Contributor), Bi, Ran (Contributor), Brandt, Stephanie Akemi (Contributor), Busza, Wit (Contributor), Cali, Ivan Amos (Contributor), D'Alfonso, Mariarosaria (Contributor), Demiragli, Zeynep (Contributor), Gomez-Ceballos, Guillelmo (Contributor), Goncharov, Maxim (Contributor), Harris, Philip Coleman (Contributor), Hsu, Dylan George (Contributor), Hu, Miao (Contributor), Iiyama, Yutaro (Contributor), Innocenti, Gian Michele (Contributor), Klute, Markus (Contributor), Kovalskyi, Dmytro (Contributor), Lee, Yen-Jie (Contributor), Levin, Amy Elizabeth (Contributor), Luckey Jr, P David (Contributor), Maier, Benedikt (Contributor), Marini, Andrea Carlo (Contributor), McGinn, Christopher Francis (Contributor), Mironov, Camelia Maria (Contributor), Narayanan, Siddharth Madhavan (Contributor), Niu, Xinmei (Contributor), Paus, Christoph M. E. (Contributor), Roland, Christof E (Contributor), Roland, Gunther M (Contributor), Stephans, George S. F. (Contributor), Sumorok, Konstanty C (Contributor), Tatar, Kaya (Contributor), Velicanu, Dragos Alexandru (Contributor), Wang, Jing (Contributor), Wyslouch, Boleslaw (Contributor), Zhaozhong, S. (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2018-08-22T15:52:47Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Results of a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top quark pair (tt¯H) in final states with electrons, muons, and hadronically decaying τ leptons are presented. The analyzed data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb⁻¹ recorded in proton-proton collisions at s√=13 TeV by the CMS experiment in 2016. The sensitivity of the search is improved by using matrix element and machine learning methods to separate the signal from backgrounds. The measured signal rate amounts to 1.23[subscript − 0.43][superscript + 0.45] times the production rate expected in the standard model, with an observed (expected) significance of 3.2σ (2.8σ), which represents evidence for tt¯H production in those final states. An upper limit on the signal rate of 2.1 times the standard model production rate is set at 95% confidence level.