Search for a heavy pseudoscalar boson decaying to a Z and a Higgs boson at $$\sqrt{s}=13\,\text {Te}\text {V} $$

A search is presented for a heavy pseudoscalar boson <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mtext>A</mml:mtext></mml:math> decaying to a Z boson and a Higgs boson with mass of 125 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mspace></mml:mspace> <mml:mtext>GeV</mml:mtext></mml:mrow> </mml:math> . In the final state considered, the Higgs boson decays to a bottom quark and antiquark, and the Z boson decays either into a pair of electrons, muons, or neutrinos. The analysis is performed using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mspace></mml:mspace> <mml:msup><mml:mtext>fb</mml:mtext> <mml:mrow><mml:mo>-</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn></mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> collected in 2016 by the CMS experiment at the LHC from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mspace></mml:mspace> <mml:mrow><mml:mtext>Te</mml:mtext> <mml:mspace></mml:mspace></mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> . The data are found to be consistent with the background expectations. Exclusion limits are set in the context of two-Higgs-doublet models in the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mtext>A</mml:mtext></mml:math> boson mass range between 225 and 1000 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mspace></mml:mspace> <mml:mtext>GeV</mml:mtext></mml:mrow> </mml:math> .