A Layman’s Guide to SUSY GUTs

The determination of the most straightforward evidence for the existence of the Superworld requires a guide for non-experts (especially experimental physicists) for them to make their own judgement on the value of such predictions. For this purpose we review the most basic results of Super-Grand unification in a simple and clear way. We focus the attention on two specific models and their predictions. These two models represent an example of a direct comparison between a traditional unified-theory and a string-inspired approach to the solution of the many open problems of the Standard Model. We emphasize that viable models must satisfy all available experimental constraints and be as simple as theoretically possible. The two well defined supergravity models, SU(5) and SU(5)×U(1), can be described in terms of only a few parameters (five and three respectively) instead of the more than twenty needed in the MSSM model, i.e., the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. A case of special interest is the strict no-scale SU(5)×U(1) supergravity where all predictions depend on only one parameter (plus the top-quark mass). A general consequence of these analyses is that supersymmetric particles can be at the verge of discovery, lurking around the corner at present and near future facilities. This review should help anyone distinguish between well motivated predictions and predictions based on arbitrary choices of parameters in undefined models. CERN-TH.7077/93 CTP-TAMU-65/93 ACT-22/93 October 1993