This thesis presents a study of the scalar sector in the standard model (SM), as well as various searches for an extended scalar sector in theories beyond the SM (BSM). The first part of the thesis details the search for an SM Higgs boson decaying to taus, and produced by gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, or associated production with a vector boson, leading to evidence for decays of the Higgs boson to taus. In turn, the second part highlights several searches for an extended scalar sector, with scalar boson decays to taus. In all of the analyses presented, at least one scalar boson decays to a pair of taus. The results draw on data collected by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector during proton–proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 7 or 8 TeV.

A search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons in pp collisions at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The results are based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 inverse picobarns recorded by the CMS experiment. The search uses decays of the Higgs bosons to tau pairs. No excess is observed in the tau-pair invariant-mass spectrum. The resulting upper limits on the Higgs boson production cross section times branching fraction to tau pairs, as a function of the pseudoscalar Higgs boson mass, yield stringent new bounds in the MSSM parameter space.

We report on a search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into pairs of? leptons in p{bar p} collisions produced by the Tevatron at √s = 1.96 TeV. The analyzed data sample was recorded by the CDFII detector and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 6.0 fb−1. The search is performed in the final state with one? decaying leptonically and the second one identified through its semi-hadronic decay. Since no significant excess is observed, a 95% credibility level upper limit on the production cross section times branching ratio to the?? final state is set for hypothetical Higgs boson masses between 100 and 150 GeV/c2. For a Higgs boson of 120 GeV/c2 the observed (expected) limit is 14.6 (15.3) the predicted value.