A Collider Search for Dark Matter Produced in Association with a Higgs Boson with the CMS Detector at the 13 TeV LHC

The study presented in this dissertation is a search for dark matter produced in 13 TeV proton- proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) using 35.9 fb −1 of data collected in 2016 with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector. Dark matter escapes the detector without interacting, resulting in a large imbalance of transverse momentum, which can be observed when a Higgs boson is tagged in the opposite direction. A variety of models which motivate a dark matter and Higgs interaction are discussed. The experimental signature of these models is called mono-Higgs. In this search, the Higgs is produced primarily from gluon fusion and decays to four leptons via two Z bosons (H → ZZ → 4l). In addition to observing the Higgs in the four-lepton final state, an extensive study of missing transverse energy (MET) is required to search for the mono-Higgs signature. A background model is developed for the Standard Model processes that result in the same final state as the signal, then a counting experiment is performed in an optimized signal region. There is no evidence for an excess of events in the signal region above the backgrounds, so cross section limits are set for two kinematically distinct signal models.