Can the Higgs Sector Be Probed in Tau-Lepton Decays?

It is unlikely that a high statistics study of r-lepton decays will be sensitive to the Higgs boson sector of electroweak physics. A Tau-Charm Factory is an ideal facility for the study of rare deca.ys of the rlepton. At a machine discussed in these Proceedings, one might expect to produce on the order of lo7 r’s per year. It is an interesting exercise to consider whether such a data sample is sufficiently large to shed any light on the Higgs boson sector of electroweak physics. In this note, I will consider possible effects in the context of the Standard Model with minimal Higgs structure, and in modest extensions thereof. In the Standard Model, there exists one physical neutral CP-even Higgs scalar, which couples to any particle A with coupling strength proportional to mA/mW. However, the mass of the Higgs boson is a free parameter of the model. There are numerous experimental results which have significant implications for the possible existence of a Standard Model Higgs boson with mass less than 5 GeV.““’ Although the existence of a Higgs boson in this mass range is rather unlikely, various theoretical (and some experimental) uncertainties may still allow for the existence of a light Higgs boson with mass less than m,. If such a light scalar were to exist, then it would be possible to produce the Higgs boson in r decay via r + u,X + Ho (where X is any final state that can be produced in r decay). The Higgs boson can,