Higgs mass predictions of public NMSSM spectrum generators

TL;DR

This paper compares different public NMSSM spectrum generators and identifies key reasons for discrepancies in Higgs mass predictions, emphasizing the impact of parameter calculations and renormalization choices.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes the sources of differences among spectrum generators for the NMSSM Higgs mass predictions, highlighting the importance of top Yukawa coupling calculations.

Findings

Differences in Higgs mass predictions can exceed 8 GeV.

Discrepancies are mainly due to calculation of running parameters and renormalization choices.

The top Yukawa coupling calculation significantly affects the results.

Abstract

The publicly available spectrum generators for the NMSSM often lead to different predictions for the mass of the standard model-like Higgs boson even if using the same renormalization scheme and two-loop accuracy. Depending on the parameter point, the differences can exceed 5 GeV, and even reach 8 GeV for moderate superparticle masses of up to 2 TeV. It is shown here that these differences can be traced back to the calculation of the running standard model parameters entering all calculations, to the approximations used in the two-loop corrections included in the different codes, and to different choices for the renormalization conditions and scales. In particular, the importance of the calculation of the top Yukawa coupling is pointed out.