Search for heavy resonances decaying into a Z boson and a Higgs boson in the 2l2b final state in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV

A search for heavy resonances decaying to a Higgs boson and a Z boson is presented. The analysis is based on the data collected in 2015 with the CMS detector√at a center-of-mass energy s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.51 f b−1 . The Higgs bosons are reconstructed from high momentum b¯bquark pairs that are detected as a single massive jet, while the Z bosons are reconstructed from electron pairs and muon pairs. The analysis is separated inelectron and muon channels, with single and double b-tag categories. A 95%upper limit on the production cross section of σX × B(X → ZH) is derived fromthe combination of four categories with a limit of 0.063 pb to 0.265 pb for mX from800 to 4000 GeV.Thesis Supervisor: Shin-Shan Eiko YuTitle: Associate Professor