Search for Higgs bosons produced in association with b quarks and decaying into a b-quark pair with 13 TeV data

A search for Higgs bosons that decay into a b quark-antiquark pair and are accompanied by at least one additional b quark is performed with the CMS detector. The data analyzed were recorded in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $13~\mathrm{TeV}$ at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $35.7~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$. The final state considered is particularly sensitive to signatures of a Higgs sector beyond the standard model, as predicted by the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and the two Higgs doublet model (2HDM) with large values of the parameter $\tan \beta$. No signal above the standard model background expectation is observed. Stringent upper limits on the cross section times branching fraction are set for Higgs bosons with masses up to $1300~\mathrm{GeV}$ at $95\%$ confidence level. The results are interpreted within several MSSM and 2HDM scenarios. In the hMSSM scenario, upper limits on $\tan \beta$ are obtained, ranging from $22$ to $60$ for Higgs masses from $300$ to $900~\mathrm{GeV}$. In the flipped 2HDM scenario, similar upper limits on $\tan \beta$ are set over the full $\cos(\beta-\alpha)$ range and for Higgs masses from $300$ to $850~\mathrm{GeV}$.