Detecting Higgs boson decays to neutralinos at hadron supercolliders

We examine prospects for detecting the neutral Higgs bosons of minimal supersymmetric models (MSSM’s) when their decays into neutralino pairs are kinematically allowed. The best signature appears to be ${\mathit{H}}_{\mathit{h}}$,${\mathit{H}}_{\mathit{p}}$→Z${\mathrm{̃}}_2$Z${\mathrm{̃}}_2$→4l+E${\mathrm{/}}_{\mathit{T}}$. We argue that standard model contributions to this signature are negligible, and examine regions of MSSM parameter space where the four lepton mode should be observable at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The same signal can also come from continuum neutralino pair production. We propose a set of cuts to illustrate that the neutralino decay mode of the Higgs bosons provides a viable signal over a substantial range of model parameters, and show that it may be separable from continuum neutralino production if sufficient integrated luminosity can be accumulated.