Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the two-electron and two-muon final state with the CMS detector

The decay of the standard model Higgs boson to ZZ(⋆), with both Zs decaying to leptons is one of the most important potential discovery channels for the Higgs boson at the large hadron collider at CERN. The four lepton state with the highest branching ratio is the two-electron two-muon final state. This paper presents the discovery potential of the Higgs boson in this channel with the CMS detector. Higgs boson masses between 115 and 600 GeV are explored. With the exception of a narrow region close to mH = 170 GeV, it is found that for 130 GeV⩽mH⩽ 500 GeV, the Higgs boson is expected to be observable at CMS with significance exceeding 5σ with 30 fb−1 of integrated luminosity.