Abstract

A measurement of the Standard Model Higgs boson produced in association with a W or Z boson and decaying into a pair of ?-leptons is presented. This search is based on proton-proton collision data collected at s=13 TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb?1. For the Higgs boson candidate, only final states with at least one ?-lepton decaying hadronically (??hadrons+??) are considered. For the vector bosons, only leptonic decay channels are considered: Z??? and W????, with ?=e,?. An excess of events over the expected background is found with an observed (expected) significance of 4.2 (3.6) standard deviations, providing evidence of the Higgs boson produced in association with a vector boson and decaying into a pair of ?-leptons. The ratio of the measured cross-section to the Standard Model prediction is ?VH??=1.28?0.29+0.30(stat.)?0.21+0.25(syst.). This result represents the most accurate measurement of the VH(??) process achieved to date. © 2024 The Author(s)