Search for an exotic decay of the Higgs boson into a Z boson and a pseudoscalar particle in proton-proton collisions at <math altimg="si1.svg"><msqrt><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msqrt><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">=</mo><mn>13</mn><mrow><mspace width="0.20em"/><mtext>TeV</mtext></mrow></math>

Benecke, Anna;Bruno, Giacomo;Caputo, Claudio;Delaere, Christophe;Bethani, Agni;et.al.
(2024) Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics — Vol. 852 (2024)

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Abstract
A search for an exotic decay of the Higgs boson to a Z boson and a light pseudoscalar particle (a), decaying to a pair of leptons and a pair of photons, respectively, is presented. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of <math altimg="si102.svg"><msqrt><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msqrt><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">=</mo><mn>13</mn><mspace width="0.2em"/><mtext>TeV</mtext></math>, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138<math altimg="si3.svg"><mspace width="0.2em"/><msup><mrow><mtext>fb</mtext></mrow><mrow><mo linebreak="badbreak" linebreakstyle="after">−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></math>. The analysis probes pseudoscalar masses <math altimg="si4.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>m</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">a</mi></mrow></msub></math> between 1 and 30 GeV, leading to two pairs of well-isolated leptons and photons. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the Higgs boson production cross section times its branching fraction to two leptons and two photons. The observed (expected) limits are in the range of 1.1–17.8 (1.7–17.9)fb within the probed <math altimg="si4.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>m</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">a</mi></mrow></msub></math> interval. An excess of data above the expected standard model background with a local (global) significance of 2.6 (1.3) standard deviations is observed for a mass hypothesis of <math altimg="si6.svg"><msub><mrow><mi>m</mi></mrow><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">a</mi></mrow></msub><mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">=</mo><mn>3</mn><mspace width="0.2em"/><mtext>GeV</mtext></math>. Limits on models involving axion-like particles, formulated as an effective field theory, are also reported.
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Benecke, A., Bruno, G., Caputo, C., Delaere, C., Donertas, I. S., Giammanco, A., Jaffel, K., Jain, S., Lemaitre, V., Lidrych, J., Mastrapasqua, P., Mondal, K., Tran, T. T., Wertz, S., CMS, Bethani, A., & et al. (2024). Search for an exotic decay of the Higgs boson into a Z boson and a pseudoscalar particle in proton-proton collisions at <math altimg=“si1.svg”><msqrt><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msqrt><mo linebreak=“goodbreak” linebreakstyle=“after”>=</mo><mn>13</mn><mrow><mspace width=“0.20em”/><mtext>TeV</mtext></mrow></math>. Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, 852. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2024.138582 (Original work published 2024)