A search for $W\pm H \to\mu\nu b\overline{b}$ production at the Tevatron

This thesis describes a search for the Higgs boson in $D0$ data taken between April 2002 and February 2006. The search focuses on associated $W^{\pm} H$ production, where the $W^{\pm}$ decays to a muon and a neutrino and the Higgs boson into a $b\overline{b}$ pair. Chapter 2 introduces the Standard Model and the Higgs mechanism. Chapter 3 describes the Tevatron particle accelerator and the $D0$ detector. The methods and algorithms used to acquire and reconstruct the data used in the analysis are presented in Chapter 4. Since the Higgs boson most often decays into a bb pair, the identification of jets originating from bottom quarks is very important. Chapter 5 describes in detail a Neural Net-based tool used for the identification of b-jets. The tool uses information from previously developed tagging algorithms used in $D0$ and improves the efficiency for finding b-jets.