MSSM Higgs sector at the one-loop level

This work provides an elementary introduction to the Higgs sector renormalisation within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) framework. The main aim of the paper is to clarify some technical details that are usually omitted in the existing literature. The MSSM tree-level relation m _h ² + m _H ² = m _A ² + m _Z ² is renormalised using the standard technique of direct computation of the relevant one-loop Feynman diagrams. The calculation is performed within the unitary gauge and the definition of the renormalised parameters is briefly reviewed. The expected cancellation of ultraviolet divergences is explicitly checked and the well-known leading-log term is recovered. All the necessary ingredients of the computations are summarized in the appendices which makes the work more self-contained.     

Towards high-precision predictions for the MSSM Higgs sector

The status of the evaluation of the MSSM Higgs sector is reviewed. The phenomenological impact of recently obtained corrections is discussed. In particular it is shown that the upper bound on m_h within the MSSM is shifted upwards. Consequently, lower limits on obtained by confronting the upper bound as function of with the lower bound on m_h from Higgs searches are significantly weakened. Furthermore, th e region in the M_A--plane where the coupling of the lightest Higgs boson to down-type fermions is suppressed is modified. The presently not calculated higher-order corrections to the Higgs-boson mass matrix are estimated to shift the mass of the lightest Higgs boson by up to 3 GeV. Received: 12 December 2002 / Published online: 3 March 2003 RID="a" ID="a" e-mail: giuseppe.degrassi@roma3.infn.it RID="b" ID="b" e-mail: Sven.Heinemeyer@physik.uni-muenchen.de RID="c" ID="c" e-mail: hollik@mppmu.mpg.de RID="d" ID="d" e-mail: slavich@mppmu.mpg.de RID="e" ID="e" e-mail: Georg.Weiglein@durham.ac.uk     

The Higgs sector of the MSSM in the decoupling limit

We study the heavy Higgs sector of the MSSM composed of the and particles in the so-called decoupling limit where . By integrating out these heavy Higgs particles to one-loop, we compute the effective action for the electroweak gauge bosons and find out that, in the decoupling limit, all the heavy Higgs effects can be absorbed into redefinitions of the Standard Model electroweak parameters. This demonstrates explicitely that the decoupling theorem works for the heavy MSSM Higgs particles. This is also compared with the paradigmatic and different case of the Standard Model heavy Higgs particle. Finally, this work together with our two previous works, complete the demonstration that all the non-standard particles in the MSSM, namely, squarks, sleptons, charginos, neutralinos and the heavy Higgs particles, decouple to one-loop from the low energy electroweak gauge boson physics. Received: 2 March 2000 / Revised version: 13 July 2000 / Published online: 8 September 2000     

MSSM Higgs sector CP violation at photon colliders: revisited

The CP violating phases in soft SUSY breaking terms may induce indirect CP violation in the neutral Higgs boson sector through SUSY particle loops as well as direct CP violation in the γγ→H_i (i=1,2,3) through CP violating vertices. We present a complete analysis of the MSSM Higgs sector CP violation at photon colliders including the chargino loop contributions in the regime , where the CP violating mixing in the neutral Higgs sector is very strongly influenced by the scalar top loop, more so than the chargino and neutralino ones. However, the CP violating phases of the higgsino and wino mass parameters may still generate direct CP violation in γγ→H_i. In this process, the CP violating phenomena become very rich, and thus we study the production rates and polarization asymmetries in the Higgs production in detail. Photon colliders with high luminosity and well controlled polarized initial photon beams are indispensable in determining the CP properties of neutral Higgs bosons. PACS 14.80.Cp; 12.60.Jv; 11.30.Er     

Studying the MSSM Higgs sector by forward proton tagging at the LHC

We show that the use of forward proton detectors at the LHC installed at 220 m and 420 m distance around ATLAS and/or CMS can provide important information on the Higgs sector of the MSSM. We analyse central exclusive production of the neutral -even Higgs bosons h and H and their decays into bottom quarks, τ leptons and W bosons in various MSSM benchmark scenarios. Using plausible estimates for the achievable experimental efficiencies and the relevant background processes, we find that the prospective sensitivity of the diffractive Higgs production will allow one to probe interesting regions of the M_A–tanβ parameter plane of the MSSM. Central exclusive production of the -even Higgs bosons of the MSSM may provide a unique opportunity to access the bottom Yukawa couplings of the Higgs bosons up to masses of M_H≲ 250 GeV. We also discuss the prospects for identifying the -odd Higgs boson, A, in diffractive processes at the LHC.     

The Higgs boson sector of the complex MSSM in the Feynman-diagrammatic approach

In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with complex parameters (cMSSM) we calculate higher order corrections to the Higgs boson sector in the Feynman-diagrammatic approach using the on-shell renormalization scheme. The application of this approach to the cMSSM, being complementary to existing approaches, is analyzed in detail. Numerical examples for the leading fermionic corrections, including the leading two-loop effects, are presented. Numerical agreement within 10% with other approaches is found for small and moderate mixing in the scalar top sector. The leading fermionic corrections, supplemented by the full logarithmic one-loop and the leading two-loop contributions are implemented into the public Fortran code FeynHiggsFastC. Received: 6 August 2001 / Revised version: 8 October 2001 / Published online: 21 November 2001     

The one-loop renormalization of the MSSM Higgs sector and its application to the neutral scalar Higgs masses

The structure of the Higgs sector in the minimal supersymmetric standard model is reviewed at the oneloop level. An on-shell renormalization scheme of the MSSM Higgs sector is presented in detail together with the complete list of formulae for the neutral Higgs masses at the one-loop level. The results of a complete one-loop calculation for the mass spectrum of the neutral MSSM Higgs bosons and the quality of simpler Born-like approximations are discussed for sfermion and gaugino masses in the range of the electroweak scale.     

Strangephilic Higgs bosons in the MSSM

We suggest a new CPX-derived scenario for the search for strangephilic MSSM Higgs bosons at the Tevatron and the LHC, in which all neutral and charged Higgs bosons decay predominantly into pairs of strange quarks and into a strange and a charm quark, respectively. The proposed scenario is realized within a particular region of the MSSM parameter space and requires large values of tan?β, where threshold radiative corrections are significant to render the effective strange-quark Yukawa coupling dominant. Experimental searches for neutral Higgs bosons based on the identification of b-quark jets or τ leptons may miss a strangephilic Higgs boson and its existence could be inferred indirectly by searching for hadronically decaying charged Higgs bosons. Potential strategies and experimental challenges to search for strangephilic Higgs bosons at the Tevatron and the LHC are discussed.     

Neutral Higgs sector of the MSSM with explicit CP violation and non-holomorphic soft breaking

Using the effective potential method, we computed one-loop corrections to the mass matrix of neutral Higgs bosons of the Non-Holomorphic Supersymmetric Standard Model (NHSSM) with explicit CP violation, where the radiative corrections due to the quarks and squarks of the third generation were taken into account. We observed that the non-holomorphic trilinear couplings can compete with the holomorphic ones in CP violating issues for the mass and mixing of the neutral Higgs bosons.     

MSSM at future Higgs factories

In this work,we study the implications of Higgs precision measurements at future Higgs factories for the MSSM parameter space,focusing on the dominant stop sector contributions.We perform a multivariable fit to both the signal strength for various Higgs decay channels at Higgs factories and the Higgs mass.The χ²fit results show sensitivity to m_A,tan β,stop mass parameter m_SUSY,and the stop left-right mixing parameter Xt.We also study the impact of the Higgs mass prediction on the MSSM and compare the sensitivities of different Higgs factories.     

Constraints on electroweak baryogenesis in models involving an extended Higgs sector

Consequences for electroweak baryogenesis within models featuring an extended Higgs sector are analyzed. The phenomenology of extensions of the scalar sector in the Standard Model and its significance for the electroweak phase transition are studied. Conditions for the effective potential of the two-doublet model that lead to a strong first-order phase transition necessary for generating the observed baryon-antibaryon asymmetry are determined.     

Distinguishing a SM-like MSSM Higgs boson from SM Higgs boson at muon collider

We explore the possibility of distinguishing the SM-like MSSM Higgs boson from the SM Higgs boson via Higgs boson pair production at future muon collider. We study the behavior of the production cross-section in SM and MSSM with Higgs boson mass for various MSSM parameters tan β and m _A . We observe that at fixed CM energy, in the SM, the total cross-section increases with the increase in Higgs boson mass whereas this trend is reversed for the MSSM. The changes that occur for the MSSM in comparison to the SM predictions are quantified in terms of the relative percentage deviation in cross-section. The observed deviations in cross-section for different choices of Higgs boson masses suggest that the measurements of the cross-section could possibly distinguish the SM-like MSSM Higgs boson from the SM Higgs boson.      

Interpreting the LHC Higgs search results in the MSSM

Recent results reported by the ATLAS and CMS experiments on the search for a SM-like Higgs boson both show an excess for a Higgs mass near 125 GeV, which is mainly driven by the γγ   and ZZ^?$Z{Z}^{?}$ decay channels, but also receives some support from channels with a lower mass resolution. We discuss the implications of this possible signal within the context of the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), taking into account previous limits from Higgs searches at LEP, the Tevatron and the LHC. The consequences for the remaining MSSM parameter space are investigated. Under the assumption of a Higgs signal we derive new lower bounds on the tree-level parameters of the MSSM Higgs sector. We also discuss briefly an alternative interpretation of the excess in terms of the heavy CP-even Higgs boson, a scenario which is found to be still viable.     

Constraints on the Higgs field from black hole physics

We consider the connection between the thermal effect of a black hole and the restoration of a broken symmetry. It appears that the second law of thermodynamics could be violated in a special circumstance. It is shown that this does not happen if we impose some constraints on the Higgs field.This essay recieved Honorable Mention from the Gravity Research Foundation—Ed.     

Final results from DELPHI on the searches for SM and MSSM neutral Higgs bosons

These final results from DELPHI searches for the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson, together with benchmark scans of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) neutral Higgs bosons, used data taken at centre-of-mass energies between 200 and 209 GeV with a total integrated luminosity of 224 pb^-1. The data from 192 to 202 GeV are reanalysed with improved b-tagging for MSSM final states decaying to four b-quarks. The 95% confidence level lower mass bound on the Standard Model Higgs boson is 114.1 GeV/c ². Limits are also given on the lightest scalar and pseudo-scalar Higgs bosons of the MSSM.Received: 7 March 2003, Revised: 30 September 2003, Published online: 3 December 2003     

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons at LEP

The four LEP collaborations, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have searched for the neutral Higgs bosons which are predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). The data of the four collaborations are statistically combined and examined for their consistency with the background hypothesis and with a possible Higgs boson signal. The combined LEP data show no significant excess of events which would indicate the production of Higgs bosons. The search results are used to set upper bounds on the cross-sections of various Higgs-like event topologies. The results are interpreted within the MSSM in a number of “benchmark” models, including CP-conserving and CP-violating scenarios. These interpretations lead in all cases to large exclusions in the MSSM parameter space. Absolute limits are set on the parameter cosβ and, in some scenarios, on the masses of neutral Higgs bosons.