Light Higgs production at a photon collider

We present a preliminary study of the production of a light Higgs boson wit h a mass between 120 and 160 GeV in photon-photon collisions at a Compton c ollider. The event generator for the backgrounds to a Higgs signal due to ( b) over barb and (c) over barc heavy quark pair production in polarized gam ma gamma collisions is based on a complete next-to-leading order (NLO) pert urbative QCD calculation. For J(z) = 0 the large double-logarithmic correct ions up to four loops are also included. It is shown that the two-photon wi dth of the Higgs boson can be measured with high. statistical accuracy of a bout 2-10% for integrated yy luminosity in the hard part of the spectrum of 43 fb(-1). From this result the total Higgs boson width can be derived in a model independent way. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved .