Search for additional neutral Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ and 8 TeV

A search for neutral Higgs bosons decaying to tau pairs, beyond the recently discovered boson of mass $125$~GeV, is presented. The analysis is based on proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS experiment in $2011$ and $2012$, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $24.6$~fb$^{-1}$, with $4.9$~fb$^{-1}$ recorded at $7$~TeV and $19.7$~fb$^{-1}$ recorded at $8$~TeV center-of-mass energy. The search is performed in the context of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM). The sensitivity of the analysis is enhanced by performing the search in event categories based on the multiplicity of b-tagged jets and on the transverse momentum of hadronic taus. Hadronic tau decays are identified using a multivariate approach. No evidence for a signal is observed. Exclusion limits in the MSSM parameter space are computed for different MSSM benchmark scenarios: $m_\mathrm{h}^\text{max}$, $m_\mathrm{h}^\text{mod$+$}$, $m_\mathrm{h}^\text{mod$-$}$, light-stop, light-stau and $\tau$-phobic. Model independent upper limits on cross section times branching fraction for the neutral Higgs boson production of via gluon fusion and in association with bottom quarks are also given.