Observation of Higgs Boson Decay to Bottom Quarks

The observation of the standard model (SM) Higgs boson decay to a pair of bottom quarks is presented. The main contribution to this result is from processes in which Higgs bosons are produced in association with a

W

Z

boson (

V H

), and are searched for in final states including 0, 1, or 2 charged leptons and two identified bottom quark jets. The results from the measurement of these processes in a data sample recorded by the CMS experiment in 2017, comprising

41.3 {fb}^{- 1}

of proton-proton collisions at

\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

, are described. When combined with previous

V H

measurements using data collected at

\sqrt{s} = 7

, 8, and 13 TeV, an excess of events is observed at

m_{H} = 125 GeV

with a significance of 4.8 standard deviations, where the expectation for the SM Higgs boson is 4.9. The corresponding measured signal strength is

1.01 \pm 0.22

. The combination of this result with searches by the CMS experiment for

H \to b ¯ b

in other production processes yields an observed (expected) significance of 5.6 (5.5) standard deviations and a signal strength of

1.04 \pm 0.20

Observation of Higgs Boson Decay to Bottom Quarks

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