Searches for neutral Higgs bosons in e+e- collisions from sqrt(s) = 191.6 to 201.7 GeV

TL;DR

This paper reports on searches for neutral Higgs bosons in e+e- collisions at energies around 192-202 GeV, setting lower mass bounds for the SM and MSSM Higgs bosons based on data from the DELPHI experiment.

Contribution

It provides new lower mass bounds for the Standard Model and MSSM neutral Higgs bosons using data from high-energy e+e- collisions, extending previous limits.

Findings

95% CL lower mass bound for SM Higgs: 107.3 GeV/c^2

Lower bounds for MSSM Higgs bosons: 85.9 and 86.5 GeV/c^2

Extended MSSM parameter space scan to test limit robustness

Abstract

Neutral Higgs bosons of the Standard Model (SM) and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) were searched for in the data collected in 1999 by the DELPHI experiment at centre-of-mass energies between 191.6 and 201.7 GeV with a total integrated luminosity of 228 pb^{-1}. These analyses, in combination with our results at lower energies, set 95% confidence level lower mass bounds on the Standard Model Higgs boson (107.3 GeV/c^2) and on the lightest neutral scalar (85.9 GeV/c^2) and neutral pseudoscalar (86.5 GeV/c^2) Higgs bosons in representative scans of the MSSM parameter space. An extended scan of the MSSM parameter space was also performed to test the robustness of these limits.