Higgs boson decays in the Complex MSSM

TL;DR

This paper investigates Higgs boson decays within the Complex MSSM, providing detailed one-loop calculations and analyzing LEP data to identify potential unexcluded low-mass Higgs regions influenced by complex phases.

Contribution

It presents full one-loop results for Higgs cascade decays in the Complex MSSM and assesses their impact on LEP Higgs search limits, incorporating two-loop corrections from FeynHiggs.

Findings

Confirmation of an unexcluded low-mass Higgs region at LEP

Impact of vertex corrections on Higgs decay predictions

Refined theoretical predictions for Higgs cascade decays

Abstract

The analysis of the Higgs search results at LEP showed that a part of the MSSM parameter space with non-zero complex phases could not be excluded, where the lightest neutral Higgs boson, h_1, has a mass of only about 45 GeV and the second lightest neutral Higgs boson, h_2, has a sizable branching fraction into a pair of h_1 states. Full one-loop results for the Higgs cascade decay h_2 --> h_1 h_1 are presented and combined with two-loop Higgs propagator corrections taken from the program FeynHiggs. Using the improved theoretical prediction to analyse the limits on topological cross sections obtained at LEP, the existence of an unexcluded region at low Higgs mass is confirmed. The effect of the genuine vertex corrections on the size and shape of this region is discussed.