Search for Higgs Decays to New Light Bosons in Boosted Tau Final States

A search for non-standard decays of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson to pairs of light bosons, as predicted in models with extended Higgs sectors, is presented. In two Higgs doublet models, including the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model, the Higgs can decay into a pair of light scalars h or pseudoscalars a. In this search, the gluon fusion, W and Z associated Higgs, and vector boson fusion production channels for the Higgs are all considered, and the decay $\mathrm{H}\rightarrow\mathrm{a}\mathrm{a}(\mathrm{h}\mathrm{h})$ with $\mathrm{a}(\mathrm{h})\rightarrow\tau\tau$ is reconstructed from the tau decay products. The final state is characterized by one isolated high $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ muon plus at least one highly boosted pair of taus, of which one of the taus is required to decay to a muon. Using 19.7 $\text{fb}^\text{-1}$ of 8 TeV center of mass pp collision data recorded by the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, a counting experiment is performed in a region of high di-tau invariant mass. No excess of events above the Standard Model backgrounds is found, and upper limits are set on the branching ratio $BR(\mathrm{H} \rightarrow \mathrm{a}\mathrm{a}/\mathrm{h}\mathrm{h}){BR}^{2}(\mathrm{a}/\mathrm{h} \rightarrow \tau\tau)$.