Limits on neutral Higgs boson production in the forward region in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Limits on the cross-section times branching fraction for neutral Higgs bosons, produced in p p collisions at root s = 7 TeV, and decaying to two tau leptons with pseudorapidities between 2.0 and 4.5, are presented. The result is based on a dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb(-1), collected with the LHCb detector. Candidates are identified by reconstructing final states with two muons, a muon and an electron, a muon and a hadron, or an electron and a hadron. A model independent upper limit at the 95% confidence level is set on a neutral Higgs boson cross-section times branching fraction. It varies from 8.6 pb for a Higgs boson mass of 90 GeV to 0.7 pb for a Higgs boson mass of 250 GeV, and is compared to the Standard Model expectation. An upper limit on tan beta in the Minimal Supersymmetric Model is set in the m(h0)(max) scenario. It ranges from 34 for a CP-odd Higgs boson mass of 90 GeV to 70 for a pseudo-scalar Higgs boson mass of 140 GeV.