A search for neutral supersymmetric Higgs bosons and work relating to the improvement of the b-tagging and trigger capabilities at the D0 detector during Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron collider is presented. The search for evidence of the Higgs sector in the Standard Model (SM) and supersymmetric extensions of the SM are a high priority for the D0 collaboration, and b-tagging and good triggers are a vital component of these searches. The development and commissioning of the first triggers at D0 which use b-tagging is outlined, along with the development of a new secondary vertex b-tagging tool for use in the Level 3 trigger. Upgrades to the Level 3 trigger hit finding code, which have led to significant improvements in the quality and efficiency of the tracking code, and by extension the b-tagging tools, are also presented. An offline Neural Network (NN) b-tagging tool was developed, trained on Monte Carlo and extensively tested and measured on data. The new b-tagging tool significantly improves the b-tagging performance at D0, for a fixed fake rate relative improvements in signal efficiency range from {approx} 40% to {approx} 15%. Fake rates, for a fixed signal efficiency, are typically reduced to between a quarter and a third of their value. Finally, three versions of the search for neutral supersymmetric Higgs bosons are presented. The latest version of the analysis makes use of almost 1 fb{sup -1} of data, the new NN b-tagger and the new b-tagging triggers, and has set one of the world's best limits on the supersymmetric parameter tan{beta} in the mass range 90 to 150 GeV.

In some Supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model, including the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), the coupling of Higgs bosons to b-quarks is enhanced. This enhancement makes the associated production of the Higgs with b-quarks an interesting search channel for the Higgs and Supersymmetry at D0. The identification of b-quarks, both online and offline, is essential to this search effort. This thesis describes the author's involvement in the development of both types of b-tagging and in the application of these techniques to the MSSM Higgs search. Work was carried out on the Level-3 trigger b-tagging algorithms. The impact parameter (IP) b-tagger was retuned and the effects of increased instantaneous luminosity on the tagger were studied. An extension of the IP-tagger to use the z-tracking information was developed. A new b-tagger using secondary vertices was developed and commissioned. A tool was developed to allow the use of large multi-run samples for trigger studies involving b-quarks. Offline, a neural network (NN) b-tagger was trained combining the existing offline lifetime based b-tagging tools. The efficiency and fake rate of the NN b-tagger were measured in data and MC. This b-tagger was internally reviewed and certified by the Collaboration and now provides the official b-tagging for all analyses using the Run IIa dataset at D0. A search was performed for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a b{bar b} pair and produced in association with one or more b-quarks. Limits are set on the cross-section times the branching ratio for such a process. The limits were interpreted in various MSSM scenarios. This analysis uses the NN b-tagger and was the first to use this tool. The analysis also relies on triggers using the Level-3 IP b-tagging tool described previously. A likelihood discriminant was used to improve the analysis and a neural network was developed to cross-check this technique. The result of the analysis has been submitted to PRL and is comparable to the result from CDF in the same channel which uses approximately twice the integrated luminosity.

We report results of searches for neutral supersymmetric Higgs Bosons in up to 2.7 fb−1 of data collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. The final states include muons, taus, and jets from the decay of b hadrons. The searches observe no significant excess and set upper limits on neutral Higgs production cross sections. The limits are also translated into exclusions of MSSM parameter space.

Data recorded by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider are analyzed to search for neutral Higgs bosons produced in association with b quarks. The search is performed in the three-b-quark channel using multijet-triggered events corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.2 fb−1. In the absence of any significant excess above background, limits are set on the cross section multiplied by the branching ratio in the Higgs boson mass range 90 to 300 GeV, extending the excluded regions in the parameter space of the minimal supersymmetric standard model.