Mass bounds for the neutral Higgs bosons in the Next-To-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

Abstract

In the Next-To-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), the Higgs and neutralino/chargino sectors are strongly correlated by four common parameters at tree level. Therefore we analyze the experimental data from both the search for Higgs bosons as well as for neutralinos and charginos at LEP 100 in order to constrain the parameter space and the masses of the neutral Higgs particles in the NMSSM. We find that small singlet vacuum expectation values are ruled out, but a massless neutral Higgs scalar and pseudoscalar is not excluded for most of the parameter space of the NMSSM. Improved limits from the neutralino/chargino search at LEP 200, however, may lead to nonvanishing lower Higgs mass bounds.