Search for an invisibly decaying Higgs boson in e+e-collisions at 189 GeV

The data collected in 1998 by ALEPH at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 176.2 pb(-1), are analysed to search for invisible decays of a Higgs boson produced in the reaction e(+) e(-) --> hZ. The number of events found in the data and their properties art: in agreement with the Standard Model expectation. This search results in an improved 95% C.L. lower limit on the Higgs boson mass of 95.4 GeV/c(2), assuming it decays totally invisibly and for a production cross section equal to that of the Standard Model. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.