A first search is reported for a standard model Higgs boson ($H$) that is produced through vector boson fusion and decays to a bottom-quark pair. Two data samples, corresponding to integrated luminosities of $19.8{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ and $18.3{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8\mathrm{TeV}$ were selected for this channel at the CERN LHC. The observed significance in these data samples for a $H\to b\overline{b}$ signal at a mass of 125 GeV is 2.2 standard deviations, while the expected significance is 0.8 standard deviations. The fitted signal strength $\mu =\sigma /{\sigma }_{\mathrm{SM}}=2.8_{-1.4}^{+1.6}$. The combination of this result with other CMS searches for the Higgs boson decaying to a $b$-quark pair yields a signal strength of $1.0\pm 0.4$, corresponding to a signal significance of 2.6 standard deviations for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV.

• Received 2 June 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.032008

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© 2015 CERN, for the CMS Collaboration