Effects of SO(10) D-terms on SUSY signals at the Tevatron

Abstract

We study signals for the production of superparticles at the Tevatron in supergravity scenarios based on the grand unified group SO(10). The breaking of this group introduces extra contributions to the masses of all scalars, described by a single new parameter. We find that varying this parameter can considerably change the size of various expected signals studied in the literature, with different numbers of jets and/or charged leptons in the final state. The ratios of these signals can thus serve as a diagnostic to detect or constrain deviations from the much-studied scenario where all scalar masses are universal at the GUT scale. Moreover, under favorable circumstances some of these signals, and/or new signals involving hard b-jets, should be observable at the next run of the Tevatron collider even if the average scalar mass lies well above the gluino mass.