Loop Induced Higgs Boson Pair Production at e+e- Colliders

Abstract

We analyse the loop induced production of Higgs boson pairs at future high--energy $e^+e^-$ colliders, both in the Standard Model and in its minimal supersymmetric extension. The cross sections for Standard Model Higgs pair production through $W/Z$ boson loops, $\ee \ra H^0 H^0$, are rather small but the process could be visible for high enough luminosities, especially if longitudinal polarization is made available. In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, the corresponding processes of CP--even or CP--odd Higgs boson pair production, $\ee \ra hh, HH, Hh$ and $\ee \ra AA$ have smaller cross sections, in general. The additional contributions from chargino/neutralino and slepton loops are at the level of a few percent in most of the supersymmetric parameter space.