A search for the direct production of Higgs bosons in the di-tau decay mode is performed with $86.3\pm 3.5{\mathrm{pb}}^{-1}$ of data collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab during the 1994–1995 data taking period of the Tevatron. We search for events where one tau decays to an electron plus neutrinos and the other tau decays hadronically. We perform a counting experiment and set limits on the cross section for supersymmetric Higgs boson production where $\tan \beta$ is large and $m_A$ is small. For a benchmark parameter space point where $m_{A^0}=100\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$ and $\tan \beta =50$, we limit the production cross section multiplied by the branching ratio to be less than 77.9 pb at the 95% confidence level compared to the theoretically predicted value of 11.0 pb. This is the first search for Higgs bosons decaying to tau pairs at a hadron collider.

• Received 13 June 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.72.072004