Squark effects on Higgs boson production and decay at the LHC

In the context of the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, I discuss the effects of relatively light top and bottom scalar quarks on the main production mechanism of the lightest SUSY neutral Higgs boson h at the LHC, the gluon–gluon fusion mechanism gg→h, and on the most promising discovery channel, the two-photon decay mode h→γγ. In some areas of the parameter space, the top and bottom squark contributions can strongly reduce the production cross section times the branching ratio.