Implications of Electroweak Precision Data on Bounds on the Higgs-Boson Mass

Abstract

Carefully analyzing the dependence of the bounds on the Higgs-boson mass $\text{MH}$ derived from the observables ${\text{swbar}}^2(\text{LEP})$, ${\text{swbar}}^2(\text{SLD})$, $\text{Gl}$, $\text{MW}$, $\text{GT}$, $\text{Gh}$, as well as $\text{Rb}$ and $\text{Rc}$, and considering the uncertainties in $\alpha ({\text{MZ}}^2)$ and ${\alpha }_s({\text{MZ}}^2)$, we find that a stronger bound than $40\text{GeV}\text{lsim}\text{MH}\text{lsim}1\text{TeV}$ at the $1\sigma$ level can hardly be deduced at present, even if the experimental information on the top-quark mass $\text{Mt}$ from direct production is taken into account.

Comments: 5 pages, latex, contribution to the proceedings of the XXXIth RECONTRES DE MORIOND, ``Electroweak interactions and unified theories'', Les Arcs, Savoie - France, March 9-16, 1996