Techniques for the measurement of Higgs-boson branching fractions

We describe methods that can be employed at a √s =500 GeV e+e- linear collider to measure the branching fractions of a Higgs boson. These methods select one Higgs-boson decay mode above all others with high purity, leaving measurable standard model backgrounds as the only source of contamination. Integrated luminosities of 50 fb-1 are required to obtain statistical error of 10--20 % on the branching fractions to b bar b, τ+τ-, and WW(*). For an intermediate-mass Higgs boson this is sufficient to distinguish the minimal supersymmetric standard model Higgs boson from the standard model Higgs boson over most of the supersymmetric parameter space