Professor Daniela Bortoletto

Abstract:

The observation of a new b baryon via its strong decay into Ξb-π+ (plus charge conjugates) is reported. The measurement uses a data sample of pp collisions at √s=7TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.3fb -1. The known Ξb- baryon is reconstructed via the decay chain Ξb-→J/ψΞ-→μ+μ -Λ0π-, with Λ0→pπ-. A peak is observed in the distribution of the difference between the mass of the Ξb-π+ system and the sum of the masses of the Ξb- and π+, with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations. The mass difference of the peak is 14.84±0.74(stat)±0.28(syst)MeV. The new state most likely corresponds to the JP=3/2+ companion of the Ξb. © 2012 CERN.

Abstract:

A search for neutral Higgs bosons decaying to tau pairs at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is performed using a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb -1 recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The search is sensitive to both the standard model Higgs boson and to the neutral Higgs bosons predicted by the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM). No excess of events is observed in the tau-pair invariant-mass spectrum. For a standard model Higgs boson in the mass range of 110-145 GeV upper limits at 95% confidence level (CL) on the production cross section are determined. We exclude a Higgs boson with m H=115GeV with a production cross section 3.2 times of that predicted by the standard model. In the MSSM, upper limits on the neutral Higgs boson production cross section times branching fraction to tau pairs, as a function of the pseudoscalar Higgs boson mass, m A, sets stringent new bounds in the parameter space, excluding at 95% CL values of tanβ as low as 7.1 at m A=160GeV in the mhmax benchmark scenario. © 2012 CERN.