Di-photon Higgs decay in the MSSM with explicit CP violation

The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with explicit CP violation is studied with the help of the di-photon decay channel of the lightest neutral Higgs boson. Effects of CP violation, entering via the scalar/pseudo-scalar mixing at higher order as well as through the Higgs-sfermion-sfermion couplings at tree-level, are analyzed in the MSSM with and without light sparticles. A light stop may have a strong impact on the decay width and Branching Ratio (BR) of the decay process H_1 -> gamma gamma, whereas other light sparticles have only little influence. In some regions of the MSSM parameter space with large CP-violating phase phi_mu ~ 90 degrees a light stop can change the BR by more than 50%.