Search for a Higgs boson produced in association with a Z boson in pp̅ collisions

Abstract We describe a search for the Standard Model Higgs bosonwith a mass of 105 GeV / c 2 to 145 GeV / c 2 in data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 450 pb −1 collected with the DO detector at the Fermilab Tevatronp p ¯ collider at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The Higgs bosonis required to be produced in association with a Z boson, and the Z bosonis required to decay to either electrons or muons with the Higgs bosondecaying to a b b ¯ pair. The data are well described by the expected background, leading to 95% confidence level crosssection upper limits σ ( p p ¯ → Z H ) × B ( H → b b ¯ ) in the range of 3.1 pb to 4.4 pb.