Masses and couplings of the lightest Higgs bosons in (M + 1)SSM

We study the upper limits on the mass of the lightest and second lightest CP even Higgs bosons in the (M + 1)SSM, the MSSM extended by a gauge singlet. The dominant two loop contributions to the effective potential are included, which reduce the Higgs masses by GeV. Since the coupling R of the lightest Higgs scalar to gauge bosons can be small, we study in detail the relations between the masses and couplings of both lightest scalars. We present upper bounds on the mass of a ”strongly” coupled Higgs (R < 1/2) as a function of lower experimental limits on the mass of a ”weakly” coupled Higgs (R < 1/2). With the help of these results, the whole parameter space of the model can be covered by Higgs boson searches. Received: 7 September 1999 / Published online: 12 July 2002