Higgs still at large

Finally, the picture we were dying to see:
Tevatron now excludes the standard model Higgs for masses between 156 and 175 GeV. The exclusion window widened considerably since the last combination. Together with the input from direct Higgs searches at LEP and from electroweak precision observables it means that Higgs is most likely hiding somewhere between 115 and 155 GeV (assuming Higgs exists and has standard model properties). We'll get you bastard, sooner or later.

One interesting detail: Tevatron can now exclude a very light standard model Higgs, below 110 GeV. Just in case LEP screwed ;-) Hopefully, Tevatron will soon start tightening the window from the low mass side.

Another potentially interesting detail: there is some excess of events in the $b \bar b$ channel where a light Higgs could possibly show up. The distribution of the signal-to-background likelihood variable (which is some inexplicably complicated function that mortals cannot interpret) has 5 events in one of the higher s/b bins, whereas only 0.8 are expected. This cannot be readily interpreted as the standard model Higgs signal, as this should also produce events with higher s/b where there is none. Most likely the excess is a fluke, or maybe some problem with background modeling. But it could also be an indication that something weird is going on that does not quite fit the standard model Higgs paradigm. Maybe the upcoming Tevatron publications will provide us with more information.

More details in the slides of the ICHEP'10 talk by Ben Kilminster.