Six-Fermion Calculation of Intermediate-mass Higgs Boson Production at Future $e^+ e^-$ Colliders

Abstract

The production of an intermediate-mass Higgs boson in processes of the kind $e^+ e^- \to 6$ fermions at the energies of future linear colliders is studied. The recently developed and fully automatic algorithm/code ALPHA is used to compute the tree-level scattering amplitudes for the reactions $e^+ e^- \to μ^+ μ^- τ^- \barν_τ u \bar d, μ^+ μ^- e^- \barν_{e} u \bar d$. The code has been interfaced with the Monte Carlo program HIGGSPV/WWGENPV, properly adapted to 6-fermion production, in order to provide realistic results, both in the form of cross sections and event samples at the partonic level. Phenomenological results, that incorporate the effects of initial-state radiation and beamstrahlung, are shown and commented, emphasizing the potentials of full six-fermion calculations for precise background evaluation as well as for detailed studies of the fundamental properties of the Higgs particle.

31 pages, LaTeX, 15 eps low-resolution figures included