Search for Heavy Higgs Bosons Decaying into Two Tau Leptons with the ATLAS Detector Using pp Collisions at ffiffi s p = 13 TeV

Abstract

A search for heavy neutral Higgs bosons is performed using the LHC Run 2 data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at ffiffi s p ¼ 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector. The search for heavy resonances is performed over the mass range 0.2–2.5 TeV for the τþτ− decay with at least one τ-lepton decaying into final states with hadrons. The data are in good agreement with the background prediction of the standard model. In the M125 h scenario of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, values of tan β > 8 and tan β > 21 are excluded at the 95% confidence level for neutral Higgs boson masses of 1.0 and 1.5 TeV, respectively, where tan β is the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two Higgs doublets.