Search for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

A search for supersymmetry (SUSY) is presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions collected in 2012 by the CMS experiment at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy ($E_{\mathrm{T}}^{\text{miss}}$). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with $E_{\mathrm{T}}^{\text{miss}}$. The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric interactions, and 95\% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values.