Production of scalar Higgs bosons associated with the Z⁰ boson at the CERN LHC in the MSSM

We investigate the associated production of a scalar Higgs boson (h(0) or H-0) with the Z(0) boson in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM) at the CERN large hadron collider (LHC), including the contributions from b (b) over bar annihilation at the tree level and gluon fusion via quark and squark loops. We quantitatively analyse the total cross sections in the mSUGRA scenario. For the production of h(0) associated with Z(0), we find that in most of the parameter regions. the contributions from initial b (b) over bar and gg are at a level of one per cent of the total cross section and therefore almost insignificant. For the production of H-0 associated with Z(0), the contributions front b (b) over bar channel can be much larger than those from light quark initial states. Especially for large tan beta, the increment can reach about one order of magnitude. Thus. when considering the associated production of H-0 and Z(0) at the LHC. the contributions from b (b) over bar annihilation should be taken into account seriously.