Search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair in pp collisions at the LHC

Abstract

Abstract A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair is presented using data samples corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb−1 (5.1 fb−1) collected in pp collisions at the center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV (8 TeV). Events are considered where the top-quark pair decays to either one lepton+jets $ \left( {\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\to \ell \nu \mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}\prime \mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}}} \right) $ or dileptons $ \left( {\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\to {\ell^{+}}\nu {\ell^{-}}\overline{\nu}\mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}}} \right) $ , ℓ being an electron or a muon. The search is optimized for the decay mode $ \mathrm{H}\to \mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}} $ . The largest background to the $ \mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H} $ signal is top-quark pair production with additional jets. Artificial neural networks are used to discriminate between signal and background events. Combining the results from the 7 TeV and 8 TeV samples, the observed (expected) limit on the cross section for Higgs boson production in association with top-quark pairs for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV is 5.8 (5.2) times the standard model expectation.