Search for Higgs bosons in the final state with $b$-quarks in the semi-leptonic channel with the CMS 2017 data

The existence of several neutral Higgs states is predicted in many models comprising an enlargement of the Standard Model (SM) scalar sector, notably the general Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (2HDM) and the Minimal Supersymmetric Extension of the Standard Model (MSSM). Many of these scenarios predict an enhancement of the coupling of the neutral Higgs bosons to bottom quarks. A search for neutral Higgs bosons decaying into a $b$-quark pair in the semi-leptonic channel and produced in association with at least an additional bottom quark at the LHC is presented. The corresponding data sample was collected at CMS during proton-proton collisions in 2017 at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.5 fb$^{-1}$. In the final state, a muon must lie within the cone of any of the two most energetic b-jets in the event. The latter are initiated from the partons stemming from the Higgs boson decay. The soft muon requirement drives down considerably the trigger rates, allowing to probe Higgs bosons with masses as low as 125 GeV. The observed di-jet invariant mass distribution is compatible with the background-only prediction of the Standard Model.Therefore, stringent exclusion limits are extracted on the production cross-section times branching fraction of the signal process for Higgs boson masses ranging up to 700 GeV.The exclusion limits are further translated into the parameter space of several MSSM and 2HDM benchmark scenarios.