H and A Discrimination using Linear Polarization of Photons at the PLC

Abstract

First realistic estimate of the usefulness of the Photon Linear Collider with linearly polarized photons as analyzer of the CP-parity of Higgs bosons is presented. MSSM Higgs bosons H and A with 300 GeV mass, for the model parameters corresponding to the so called "LHC wedge" region, are considered. When switching from circular to linear photon polarization a significant increase in heavy quark production background, which is no longer suppressed by helicity conservation, and decrease of the Higgs boson production cross sections by a factor of two is expected. Nevertheless, after three years of Photon Linear Collider running heavy scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs bosons in MSSM can be distinguished at a 4.5 sigma level.

4pp. To appear in the proceedings of 2007 International Linear Collider Workshop (LCWS07 and ILC07), Hamburg,