R. Barate et al., SEARCH FOR THE STANDARD MODEL HIGGS-BOSON IN E(-) COLLISIONS AT ROOT-S=161, 170 AND 172 GEV()E(), Physics letters. Section B, 412(1-2), 1997, pp. 155-172
The reaction e(+)e(-) --> HZ is used to search for the Standard Model
Higgs boson, The data sample consists of integrated luminosities of 10
.9 pb(-1), 1.1 pb(-1), and 9.5 pb(-1) collected by the ALEPH experimen
t at LEP during 1996, at centre-of-mass energies of 161, 170 and 172 G
eV, respectively. No candidate events were found, in agreement with th
e expected background of 0.84 events from all Standard Model processes
. This search results in a 95% C.L. lower limit on the Higgs boson mas
s of 69.4 GeV/c(2). When combined with earlier ALEPH searches performe
d at energies at and around the Z peak, this limit increases to 70.7 G
eV/c(2). (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.