Abstract: A search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a charm quark-antiquark pair, H -> c¯c, produced in association with a leptonically decaying V (W or Z) boson is presented. The search is performed with proton-proton collisions at s p ¼ 13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb-1. Novel charm jet identification and analysis methods using machine learning techniques are employed. The analysis is validated by searching for Z -> c¯c in VZ events, leading to its first observation at a hadron collider with a significance of 5.7 standard deviations. The observed (expected) upper limit on (VH)B(H -> c¯c) is 0.94 (0.50 +0.22 -0.15)pb at 95% confidence level (C.L.), corresponding to 14 (7.6 +3.4 -2.3 ) times the standard model prediction. For the Higgs-charm Yukawa coupling modifier, ?c, the observed (expected) 95% C.L. interval is 1.1 < |Kc| < 5.5 (|kC| < 3.4), the most stringent constraint to date.

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