Search for the Higgs Boson Decays to a Photon and Two Leptons with Low Dilepton Invariant Mass

Understand

A search for a Higgs boson decay $H\to\gamma^*\gamma\to\ell\ell\gamma$ is presented.

• The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS detector at the CERN LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb$^{-1}$.
• The selected events have an opposite-sign muon or electron pair and a high transverse momentum photon.
• No excess above background has been found in the three-body invariant mass range $120<m_{\ell\ell\gamma}<150$ GeV, and limits have been derived for the Higgs boson production cross section times branching fraction for the $H\to\gamma^*\gamma\to\ell\ell\gamma$ decay, where the dilepton invariant mass is less than 20 GeV.