Discovery and Characterization of a Higgs-like Resonance Using the Matrix Element Likelihood Approach

Understanding the exact mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking through the discovery and characterization of the Higgs boson is one of the primary goals of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Two searches for a Higgs boson decaying to a pair of Z bosons with subsequent decays to either 2l2q or 4l are presented using data recorded with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS). The discovery and characterization of a Higgs-like resonance using a new set of tools is reported. The foundations of such tools are developed and prospects for their use in other Higgs channels and at future colliders are addressed. Although the Standard Model (SM) of electroweak interactions has been extremely successful in describing a number of phenomena, there are still questions to be addressed pertaining to its naturalness and its possible connection to beyond the SM physics. Results are interpreted in the context of possible extensions to the SM and their effect on our understanding of the universe.