Measurement of the Higgs boson production via vector boson fusion and its decay into bottom quarks in proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV

A measurement of the Higgs boson (H) production via vector boson fusion (VBF) and its decay into a bottom quark-antiquark pair (bb¯) is presented using proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS experiment at s = 13 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 90.8 fb⁻¹. Treating the gluon-gluon fusion process as a background and constraining its rate to the value expected in the standard model (SM) within uncertainties, the signal strength of the VBF process, defined as the ratio of the observed signal rate to that predicted by the SM, is measured to be μ_Hbb¯^qqh=1.01_−0.46^+0.55. The VBF signal is observed with a significance of 2.4 standard deviations relative to the background prediction, while the expected significance is 2.7 standard deviations. Considering inclusive Higgs boson production and decay into bottom quarks, the signal strength is measured to be μ_Hbb¯^incl.=0.99_−0.41^+0.48, corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 2.6 (2.9) standard deviations.