Evidence for the Dimuon Decay of the Higgs Boson in (Formula presented) Collisions with the ATLAS Detector

Abstract

A search for the dimuon decay of the Higgs boson is presented based on (Formula presented) collision data recorded by ATLAS during Run 3 of the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of (Formula presented) at (Formula presented). To enhance the sensitivity, the results are combined with those from Run 2. An excess of events over the background is observed with a significance of (Formula presented) ((Formula presented) expected). The best-fit signal strength is (Formula presented). This result provides evidence for the (Formula presented) decay with ATLAS data and offers a direct probe of the Higgs-boson Yukawa coupling to second-generation fermions.