Standard model Higgs search at LEP-II

The aim of the LEP experiments in their final years was to explore the highest energy collisions for a possible hint of new particles or new phenomena. Most important among the new particles is the Higgs boson. The precision electroweak data indicate that the Higgs boson could be within the reach of the LEP experiments. I summarize the experimental searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson by the four LEP experiments during the year 2000, the last year of the LEP operation. In the recently updated preliminary analyses using all the data collected in 2000, a 95% C.L. lower bound of 114.1 GeV has been obtained for the Higgs boson mass. With several significant candidate events particularly in the ALEPH data and in the 4-jet final state, the likelihood analysis shows an excess that can be interpreted as a 115.6 GeV Higgs boson. The probability for background fluctuations to produce such an excess is 3.5%. (author)