RADIATIVE-CORRECTIONS TO THE SUPERSYMMETRIC NEUTRAL HIGGS BOSON MASSES

We compute radiative corrections to the masses of the neutral Higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric standard model. General expressions for the one-loop corrected physical masses are properly obtained by finding the propagator poles, instead of approximating them with the second derivatives of the effective potential. The relation between the two approaches is discussed in detail. We also perform a complete diagrammatic calculation of the most important one-loop contributions to m(H) and m(h), which are due to top, bottom, stop and sbottom virtual effects. These contributions, which were partially evaluated in the effective potential approximation, are here fully taken into account. However, in general the differences turn out to be numerically small.