Measurement of the signal strength of the Higgs boson decaying to bottom quarks and produced from Vector Boson Fusion using proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13~\mathrm{TeV}$

A measurement of the signal strength of Higgs boson production via the vector boson fusion (VBF) process and its subsequent decay into a pair of bottom quarks is presented. The analysis uses the proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $91~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$. Treating gluon-gluon fusion as a background and constraining its rate within the theoretical and the experimental uncertainties to the standard model prediction (SM), the signal strength of the VBF process, defined as the ratio of the observed signal rate to that predicted in the SM, is measured to be $\mu_{qqH}=0.97^{+0.53}_{-0.45}$. The VBF signal is observed with a significance of 2.4$\sigma$ relative to the background prediction, while the expected significance is 2.7$\sigma$. The inclusive measurement of the Higgs boson production followed by the Higgs boson decay into bottom quarks yields the best-fit value for the signal strength of $\mu_{Hb\bar{b}}=0.92^{+0.45}_{-0.39}$, corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 2.5 (2.9)$\sigma$. $$\textit{This document has been revised with respect to the version dated November 8, 2022.}$$