Neutral MSSM Higgs-boson production with heavy quarks: NLO supersymmetric QCD corrections

Abstract

Within the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) the associated production of neutral Higgs bosons with top and bottom quarks belongs to the most important Higgs-boson production processes at the LHC. At large values of $\mathrm{tg}\ensuremath{\beta}$, in particular, bottom-Higgs associated production constitutes the dominant production channel within the MSSM. We have calculated the next-to-leading-order supersymmetric QCD corrections to neutral Higgs production through the parton processes $q\overline{q}$, $gg\ensuremath{\rightarrow}t\overline{t}/b\overline{b}+h/H/A$ and present results for the total cross sections. The genuine SUSY-QCD corrections are of moderate size for small $\mathrm{tg}\ensuremath{\beta}$, but can be sizable for large $\mathrm{tg}\ensuremath{\beta}$. In the latter case the bulk of these corrections can be absorbed into effective bottom Yukawa couplings.