Search for heavy neutral Higgs bosons in two-doublet models

Abstract

A search for pair production of neutral heavy Higgs bosons decaying into\(b\bar b\) has been carried out in a study of hadronic decays of the Z boson into four jet final states using data taken by DELPHI in 1991 and 1992. The two production mechanisms present in the two Higgs doublets scheme, bremsstrahlung production of hZ* and associated production of hA, may lead to four beauty jets well recognizable using the precise microvertex detector measurements. No evidence for a signal was found, leading to limits on BR(Z→hA→4b) from 3.5 to 5.5×10−4 at 95% contidence level, depending on the mass of the ligthest Higgs. When combined with the results of the recent DELPHI standard Higgs search, this result allows the kinematical limit to be reached for the masses of h and A in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) scheme. It also allows the tanβ≤1 domain to be explored, and a region above the kinematic limit for direct hA production is constrained by considering virtual hA production. Results are also given in the general two-doublet scheme.