The Higgs Mass Bound in Gauge Extensions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

The minimal supersymmetric standard model, and extensions, have stringent upper bounds on the mass of the lightest Higgs boson if perturbativity up to the Planck scale is assumed. We argue that these bounds are softened tremendously if the Higgs is charged under an asymptotically free gauge group. We present a model with an additional SU(2) gauge group which easily produces Higgs masses above 200 GeV while avoiding electroweak constraints. If one allows some fine-tuning of the high-scale value of the gauge coupling, Higgs masses greater than 350 GeV are achieved. Unification of couplings is predicted to similar accuracy as in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with only small deviations at the two-loop level.