Search for the neutral Higgs bosons of the MSSM in e+e− collisions at from 130 to 172 GeV

The process e+e--->hA is used to search for the Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), in the b<OVL STYLE = "S">boverlineb<OVL STYLE = "S">boverline and τ+τ-b<OVL STYLE = "S">boverline final states. The search is performed in the data collected by the ALEPH experiment at LEP, at centre-of-mass energies between 130 and 172 GeV and with a total luminosity of 27.2 pb-1. No candidate events are found in either of the final states, in agreement with the expected background of 0.91 events from all Standard Model processes. Combined with searches for e+e--->hZ, this results in a 95% C.L. lower limit on the masses of both h and A of 62.5 GeV/c2, for tan β>1.