Can the Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric model be detected at a hadron collider via two-photon decays?

Detection at a hadron collider of the neutral Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model is not straightforward. Their decays to WW and ZZ pairs are either phase-space forbidden or are suppressed or absent at the coupling-constant level; thus, detection of these neutral Higgs bosons in such modes will not be possible. Their detection in heavy-quark decay modes is also almost certainly impossible due to large QCD backgrounds. One possible detection mode (that proves useful for a standard-model Higgs boson with mass below 2${m}_{W}$ and 2${m}_{\mathrm{top}}$) is via decays to two photons. We investigate the branching ratio for such decays as a function of Higgs-boson mass for a selection of neutralino and chargino mass-matrix parameters. Except for a few limited regions of parameter space, we conclude that this mode of detection is probably not viable given the known two-photon continuum backgrounds.