Eur. Phys. J. C (2007) 52: 229-245
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-007-0373-9

Special Article - Scientific Note

The ATLAS discovery potential for MSSM neutral Higgs bosons decaying to a μ⁺μ^- pair in the mass range up to 130 GeV

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università La Sapienza, I.N.F.N., Sezione di Roma, P. le Aldo Moro 2, 00185, Roma, Italy
² Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, I.N.F.N., Frascati, Via Enrico Fermi 40, 00044, Roma, Italy

^* e-mail: atlas.secretariat@cern.ch

Received: 23 May 2007
Revised: 29 July 2007
Published online: 7 August 2007

Abstract

Results are presented on the discovery potential for MSSM neutral Higgs bosons in the m_h-max scenario. The region of large cosβ, between 15 and 50, and mass between ≈95 and 130 GeV is considered in the framework of the ATLAS experiment at the large hadron collider (LHC), for a centre-of-mass energy = 14 TeV. This parameter region is not fully covered by the present data either from LEP or from Tevatron. The h/A bosons, supposed to be very close in mass in that region, are studied in the channel h/A→μ⁺μ^- accompanied by two b-jets. The study includes a method to control the most copious background, Z→μ⁺μ^- accompanied by two b-jets. A possible contribution of the H boson to the signal is also considered.