Analysis strategy for the SM Higgs boson search in the four-lepton final state with the CMS detector

The current status of the searches for the SM Higgs boson in the $H\rightarrow ZZ^{(*)}\rightarrow 4\ell$ decay channel with the CMS experiment is presented. The selection cuts for suppressing the backgrounds while keeping very high signal efficiencies are described, along with the data-driven algorithms implemented to estimate the background yields and the systematic uncertainties. With an integrated luminosity of $1.66~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$, upper limits at $95\%$ CL on the SM-like Higgs cross section $\times$ branching ratio exclude cross sections from about one to two times the expected value from the Standard Model in the range $150 < m_{H} < 420~\mathrm{GeV}$. No evidence for the existence of the SM Higgs boson has been found so far.