Search for Neutral MSSM Higgs Bosons at LEP

TL;DR

This paper reports a comprehensive search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons at LEP, combining data from four experiments, finding no evidence, and setting significant limits on MSSM parameters and Higgs masses.

Contribution

It provides the first combined LEP analysis of MSSM Higgs bosons, setting new exclusion limits across various benchmark models including CP-violating scenarios.

Findings

No significant Higgs signal observed

Large exclusions in MSSM parameter space

Limits on Higgs boson masses and tanb

Abstract

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 tanb and, in some scenarios, on the masses of neutral Higgs bosons.