摘要
We explore the potential of a future e+e- collider in the 0.5 TeV center-of-mass energy range to detect intermediate or heavy Higgs bosons in the standard model. We first briefly assess the logistics for finding a Higgs boson of intermediate mass, with MZ<mH<2MW. We then study in detail the possibility of detecting a heavy Higgs boson, with mH>2MW, through the production of pairs of weak bosons. We quantitatively analyze the sensitivity of the process e+e-W+W-(ZZ) to the presence of a heavy-Higgs-boson resonance in the standard model. We compare this signal to various backgrounds and to the smaller signal from e+e-ZH+-W+W-(ZZ), assuming the weak-boson pairs to be detected and measured in their dominant hadronic decay modes W+W-(ZZ)4 jets. A related Higgs-boson signal in 6-jet final states is also estimated. We show how the main backgrounds from e+e-W+W-(ZZ), eWZ, and tt» production can be reduced by suitable acceptance cuts. Bremsstrahlung and typical beamstrahlung corrections are calculated. These corrections reduce Higgs-boson production by scattering mechanisms but increase production by annihilation mechanisms; they also smear out some dynamical features such as Jacobian peaks in pT(H). With all these corrections included, we conclude that it should be possible to detect a heavy-Higgs-boson signal in the W+W-(ZZ) channels up to mass mH=350 GeV. © 1992 The American Physical Society.