Evidence For SUSY From GUTS? Evidence For GUTS From SUSY!

We review the theoretical and experimental status of minimal grand unified theories (GUTS), contrasting the failure of minimal non-supersymmetric SU(5) with the success of the minimal supersymmetric SU(5) and minimal supersymmetric Flipped SU(5)× U(1) models. We show that a reasonable value for the universal soft supersymmetry-breaking gaugino mass, 45GeV < m1/2 < 1TeV, and a 1−σ range of the other inputs constrains the strong coupling, α3(mZ) > .114. We define the supersymmetric standard model (SSM), the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model with gauge coupling unification and universal soft supersymmetry-breaking at the unification scale, as a baseline model for unified theories. We review the structure of the allowed parameter space of the SSM and suggest sparticle spectroscopy as the experimental means to determine the parameters of the SSM and search for departures from the baseline SSM. Invited talk at the Ten Years of SUSY Confronting Experiment conference CERN, September 7–9, 1992 MIU–THP–92/61 October, 1992