Search for New Light Higgs Bosons in Boosted Tau Final States with the CMS Experiment

In this dissertation, I present a search for non-standard decays of a Standard Model-likeHiggs boson to pairs of light bosons, as predicted in models with extended Higgs sectors.In two Higgs doublet models, including the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standardmodel, the Higgs boson can decay into a pair of light pseudoscalars a.In this search, the gluon fusion, W and Z associated Higgs, and vector boson fusionproduction channels for the Higgs are all considered, and the decay H →aa with a → τ τis reconstructed from the tau decay products. The final state is characterized by oneisolated high pT muon plus at least one highly boosted pair of taus, of which one of thetaus is required to decay to a muon.Using 19.7 fb−1 of 8 TeV center of mass pp collision data recorded by the CompactMuon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, a counting experiment is performed in a region of high di-tau invariant mass. We have found no excess of events abovethe Standard Model backgrounds, and the observed data is used to set upper limits on thebranching ratio Br(H →aa)Br2 (a → τ τ ). These results are equally applicable to decaysof the SM-like Higgs boson to a pair of light scalars h.