$Z\to b\bar{b}$ in $U(1{)}_R$ Symmetric Supersymmetry

Abstract

We compute the one-loop corrections to the $Z\to b\bar{b}$ vertex in the $U(1{)}_R$ symmetric minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. We find that the predicted value of $R_b$ is consistent with experiment if the mass of the lighter top squark is no more than 180 GeV. Furthermore, other data combines to place a lower bound of 88 GeV on the mass of the light top squark. A top squark in this mass range should be accessible to searches by experiments at FNAL and LEP.

Comments: Corrected typos; added footnotes and a reference. 19 pages, LaTeX, includes 8 figures, full postscript version at http://smyrd.bu.edu/htfigs/htfigs.html