Search for standard model Higgs boson production in association with a W boson using a neural network discriminant at CDF

We present a search for standard model Higgs bosonproduction in association with a W boson in proton- antiprotoncollisions (pp{yields}W{sup {+-}}H{yields}l{nu}bb) at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The search employs data collected with the CDF II detector that correspond to an integrated luminosity of approximately 1.9 fb{sup -1}. We select events consistent with a signature of a single charged lepton (e{sup {+-}}/{mu}{sup {+-}}), missing transverse energy, and two jets. Jets corresponding to bottom quarksare identified with a secondary vertex tagging method, a jet probability tagging method, and a neural network filter. We use kinematic information in an artificial neural network to improve discrimination between signal and background compared to previous analyses. The observed number of events and the neural network output distributions are consistent with the standard modelbackground expectations, and we set 95% confidence level upper limits on the production cross section times branching fractionranging from 1.2 to 1.1 pb or 7.5 to 102 times the standard modelexpectation for Higgs bosonmasses from 110 to 150 GeV/c{sup 2}, respectively.