Light charged Higgs bosons in supersymmetric models

We, point out that present experimental limits from searches for neutral Higgs bosons at LEP already imply stringent lower bounds on the mass of the charged Higgs boson in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM); these bounds are especially severe for low values of tan beta (tan beta less than or equal to 3), where the H+(t) over bar b coupling is large. However, these indirect constraints are much weaker in simple extensions of the MSSM Higgs sector involving the introduction of an extra U(1) gauge group or an extra SU(2) X U(1)(y) Higgs singlet field; in the latter case charged Higgs bosons can even be light enough to be pair produced at LEP. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.