Search for invisible decays of a Higgs boson produced via vector boson fusion with $138~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13~\mathrm{TeV}$

A search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced via vector boson fusion (VBF) has been performed with the $\sqrt{s}=13~\mathrm{TeV}$ data sets collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The sensitivity to the VBF production mechanism is enhanced by using two strategies to construct two analysis categories, one based on missing transverse momentum, and a second based on the properties of jets. In addition to control regions with Z and W candidate events, a high-precision control region, based on the associated production of a photon with jets, is used to constrain the dominant irreducible background from the invisible decay of the Z boson produced in association with jets. These results are combined with previous measurements in the VBF topology, for a total integrated luminosity of $138~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$. The observed (expected) upper limit on the invisible branching fraction of the Higgs boson is found to be $0.17$ ($0.11$) at $95\%~\mathrm{CL}$, assuming the standard model production cross section.