Search for new particles in an extended Higgs sector with four b quarks in the final state at √s=13 TeV

A search for a massive resonance X decaying to a pair of spin-0 bosons phi that themselves decay to pairs of bottom quarks, is presented. The analysis is restricted to the mass ranges m(phi) from 25 to 100 GeV and m(X) from 1 to 3 TeV. For these mass ranges, the decay products of each phi boson are expected to merge into a single large-radius jet. Jet substructure and flavor identification techniques are used to identify these jets. The search is based on CERN LHC proton-proton collision data at root s= 13 TeV, collected with the CMS detector in 2016-2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138fb(-1). Model-specific limits, where the two new particles arise from an extended Higgs sector, are set on the product of the production cross section and branching fraction for X -> phi phi -> (b (b) over bar)(b (b) over bar) as a function of the resonances' masses, where both the X -> phi phi and phi -> b (b) over bar branching fractions are assumed to be 100%. These limits are the first of their kind on this process, ranging between 30 and 1fb at 95% confidence level for the considered mass ranges. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP(3).