ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an important benchmark in assessing the ability to detect a Higgs boson. It describes theoretical arguments that place general constraints on the unknown Higgs sector, even in the context of the Standard Model. In the minimal Higgs model, tree-level flavor-changing neutral currents are automatically absent, because the same operations that diagonalize the mass matrix automatically diagonalize the Higgs-fermion couplings. In a supersymmetric theory the quadratic divergence is naturally cancelled by related loop graphs involving the supersymmetric partners of the Standard Model particles contributing to the divergent loops. One of the most important ingredients in assessing the detectability of the various neutral bosons of the supersymmetric theory is a thorough understanding of their decays. In a supersymmetric model, Higgs bosons can also decay into squark and slepton pairs or into chargino/neutralino pairs. Supersymmetric decays of the Higgs present the possibility of completely novel signatures for Higgs searches.
