Abstract
Interference and mixing effects between neutral Higgs bosons in the MSSM with complex parameters are shown to have a significant impact on the interpretation of LHC searches for additional Higgs bosons. Complex MSSM parameters introduce mixing between the mathcal {CP}-even and mathcal {CP}-odd Higgs states h, H, A into the mass eigenstates h_1, h_2, h_3 and generate mathcal {CP}-violating interference terms. Both effects are enhanced in the case of almost degenerate states. Employing as an example an extension of a frequently used benchmark scenario by a non-zero phase phi _{A_t}, the interference contributions are obtained for the production of neutral Higgs bosons in gluon-fusion and in association with b-quarks followed by the decay into a pair of tau -leptons. While the resonant mixing increases the individual cross sections for the two heavy Higgs bosons h_2 and h_3, strongly destructive interference effects between the contributions involving h_2 and h_3 leave a considerable parameter region unexcluded that would appear to be ruled out if the interference effects were neglected.
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