Reconciling the Two-Loop Diagrammatic and Effective Field Theory Computations of the Mass of the Lightest CP-even Higgs Boson in the MSSM

The mass of the lightest CP-even Higgs boson of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) has previously been computed including O(alpha alpha_s) two-loop contributions by an on-shell diagrammatic method, while approximate analytic results have also been obtained via renormalization-group-improved effective potential and effective field theory techniques. Initial comparisons of the corresponding two-loop results revealed an apparent discrepancy between terms that depend logarithmically on the supersymmetry-breaking scale, and different dependences of the non-logarithmic terms on the squark mixing parameter, X_t. In this paper, we determine the origin of these differences as a consequence of different renormalization schemes in which both calculations are performed. By re-expressing the on-shell result in terms of MS-bar parameters, the logarithmic two-loop contributions obtained by the different approaches are shown to coincide. The remaining difference, arising from genuine non-logarithmic two-loop contributions, is identified, and its effect on the maximal value of the lightest CP-even Higgs boson mass is discussed. Finally, we show that in a simple analytic approximation to the Higgs mass, the leading two-loop radiative corrections can be absorbed to a large extent into an effective one-loop expression by evaluating the running top quark mass at appropriately chosen energy scales.