K. Ackerstaff et al., SEARCH FOR THE STANDARD MODEL HIGGS-BOSON IN E(-) COLLISIONS AT ROOT-S=161-172 GEV()E(), EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C-PARTICLES AND FIELDS, 1(3-4), 1998, pp. 425-438
This paper describes a search for the Standard Model Higgs boson using
data from e(+)e(-) collisions collected at center-of-mass energies of
161, 170 and 172 GeV by the OPAL detector at LEP. The data collected
at these energies correspond to integrated luminosities of 10.0, 1.0 a
nd 9.4 pb(-1), respectively. The search is sensitive to the main final
states from the process in which the Higgs boson is produced in assoc
iation with a fermion anti-fermion pair, namely four jets, two jets wi
th missing energy. and two jets produced together with a pair of elect
ron, muon or tau leptons. One candidate event is observed, in agreemen
t with the Standard Model background expectation. In combination with
previous OPAL searches at center-of-mass Energies close to the Z(0) re
sonance and the revised previous OPAL searches at 161 GeV, we derive a
lower limit of 69.4 GeV for the mass of the Standard Model Higgs boso
n at the 95% confidence level.