Supersymmetric Higgs Boson Decays in the MSSM with Explicit CP Violation

Abstract

Decays into neutralinos and charginos are among the most accessible supersymmetric decay modes of Higgs particles in most supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model. In the presence of explicitly CP--violating phases in the soft breaking sector of the theory, the couplings of Higgs bosons to charginos and neutralinos are in general complex. Based on a specific benchmark scenario of CP violation, we analyze the phenomenological impact of explicit CP violation in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model on these Higgs boson decays. The presence of CP--violating phases could be confirmed either directly through the measurement of a CP--odd polarization asymmetry of the produced charginos and neutralinos, or through the dependence of CP--even quantities (branching ratios and masses) on these phases.