TESTS OF HIGGS AND TOP EFFECTIVE INTERACTIONS

We study the possibility to detect heavy physics effects in the intera ctions of Higgs bosons and the top quark at future colliders using the effective Lagrangian approach, where the SM Lagrangian is modified by non-renormalizable operators that are invariant under the full strong and electroweak group. The modification of the interactions may enhan ce the production of Higgs bosons at hadron colliders through the mech anisms of gluon fusion and associated production with a W boson or tr pairs. The most promising signature is through the decay of the Higgs boson into two photons, whose branching ratio is also enhanced in this approach. As a consequence of our analysis we get a bound on the chro momagnetic dipole moment of the top quark. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B .V.