For potentials with n-Higgs-boson doublets stability, electroweak symmetry breaking, and the stationarity equations are discussed in detail. This is done within the bilinear formalism which simplifies the investigation, in particular since irrelevant gauge degrees of freedom are systematically avoided. For the case that the potential leads to the physically relevant electroweak symmetry breaking the mass matrices of the physical Higgs bosons are given explicitly.

The next-to-minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (NMSSM) is one of the most favored supersymmetric models. After an introduction to the model, the Higgs sector and the neutralino sector are discussed in detail. Theoretical, experimental, and cosmological constraints are studied. Eventually, the Higgs potential is investigated in the approach of bilinear functions. Emphasis is placed on aspects which are different from the minimal supersymmetric extension.

A model for soft high-energy scattering is developed. The model is formulated in terms of effective propagators and vertices for the exchange objects: the pomeron, the odderon, and the reggeons. The vertices are required to respect standard rules of QFT. The propagators are constructed taking into account the crossing properties of amplitudes in QFT and the power-law ansätze from the Regge model. We propose to describe the pomeron as an effective spin 2 exchange. This tensor pomeron gives, at high energies, the same results for the pp and pp elastic amplitudes as the standard Donnachie-Landshoff pomeron. But with our tensor pomeron it is much more natural to write down effective vertices of all kinds which respect the rules of QFT. This is particularly clear for the coupling of the pomeron to particles carrying spin, for instance vector mesons. We describe the odderon as an effective vector exchange. We emphasise that with a tensor pomeron and a vector odderon the corresponding charge-conjugation relations are automatically fulfilled. We compare the model to some experimental data, in particular to data for the total cross sections, in order to determine the model parameters. The model should provide a starting point for a general framework for describing soft highenergy reactions. It should give to experimentalists an easily manageable tool for calculating amplitudes for such reactions and for obtaining predictions which can be compared in detail with data.

We discuss the CP properties of the potential in the general Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (THDM). This is done in a concise way using real gauge invariant functions built from the scalar products of the doublet fields. The space of these invariant functions, parametrising the gauge orbits of the Higgs fields, is isomorphic to the forward light cone and its interior. CP transformations are shown to correspond to reflections in the space of the gauge invariant functions. We consider CP transformations where no mixing of the Higgs doublets is taken into account as well as the general case where the Higgs basis is not fixed. We present basis independent conditions for explicit CP violation which may be checked easily for any THDM potential. Conditions for spontaneous CP violation, that is CP violation through the vacuum expectation values of the Higgs fields, are also derived in a basis independent way.

In the two-Higgs-doublet model (THDM), generalized-CP transformations (ϕi → Xij ϕ * j where X is unitary) and unitary Higgs-family transformations (ϕi → Uij ϕj ) have recently been examined in a series of papers. In terms of gauge-invariant bilinear functions of the Higgs fields ϕi, the Higgs-family transformations and the generalized-CP transformations possess a simple geometric description. Namely, these transformations correspond in the space of scalar-field bilinears to proper and improper rotations, respectively. In this formalism, recent results relating generalized CP transformations with Higgs-family transformations have a clear geometric interpretation.