Probing the SUSY Higgs boson couplings to scalar leptons at high-energy $e^+e^-$ colliders

Abstract

We discuss the production at $e^+e^-$ colliders of Higgs bosons in association with both the scalar leptons and the lightest neutralinos in the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. While the rates for associated Higgs production with neutralinos and first/second generation sleptons are rather tiny, the cross section for the production of the lightest Higgs boson $h$ with scalar $τ$ lepton pairs can reach the femtobarn level at c.m. energies at and above 500 GeV in favorable regions of the parameter space, making this process potentially detectable at a high-luminosity $\ee$ collider, in particular in the $γγ$ option. This would provide a determination of the $h \tildeτ \tildeτ$ coupling and opens up the possibility of measuring the parameter $\tan β$.