Searching for Bottom Squarks at Luminosity Upgrades of the Fermilab Tevatron

Because of their Yukawa interactions, third generation squarks may be substantially lighter than those of the first two generations. Assuming that b̃1 → bZ̃1 and Z̃1 escapes experimental detection, we show that experiments at the Main Injector upgrade (integrated luminosity of 2 fb−1) of the Tevatron should be sensitive to b-squark masses up to 210 GeV for m Z̃1 ≤ 120 GeV. For integrated luminosities of 10 fb−1 (25 fb−1) the sbottom mass reach increases by 20 GeV (35 GeV). If the channel b̃1 → bZ̃2 is also accessible, the reach becomes model-dependent and may be degraded relative to the case where only the decay to Z̃1 is allowed. In models with gaugino mass unification and μ much larger than gaugino masses, we argue that this degradation is unlikely to be larger than 30-40 GeV. PACS numbers: 14.80.Cp, 14.80.Ly, 11.30.Pb Typeset using REVTEX