Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson Decaying to a b b ¯ Pair in Events with No Charged Leptons and Large Missing Transverse Energy using the Full CDF Data Set

Abstract

We report on a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a vector boson in the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at √s=1.96TeV recorded by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45fb-1. We consider events having no identified charged lepton, a transverse energy imbalance, and two or three jets, of which at least one is consistent with originating from the decay of a b quark. We place 95% credibility level upper limits on the production cross section times standard model branching fraction for several mass hypotheses between 90 and 150GeV/c2. For a Higgs boson mass of 125GeV/c2, the observed (expected) limit is 6.7 (3.6) times the standard model prediction. © 2012 American Physical Society.