Probability of secondary muons in Z → 2 muon signal in search for the Higgs boson

The Higgs boson is hoped to be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) when it begins running in 2008. The most promising channel for its discovery is the decay path Higgs → 2 Z bosons → 4 muons. The leading order backgrounds for this signal have been well studied but insufficient knowledge exists regarding the total influence of the lower order backgrounds. The project seeks to determine the probability of finding four muons in a Z→ 2muons + jets event. Furthermore, the author minimizes this probability through variable cuts and classifies the source of the muons for use in future studies. The probability for fake muons can be reduced to 0.205% while still keeping 94.58% of the Z muon signal. No four muon invariant masses can be formed after the completion of variable cuts, so larger statistics are required for future studies.