Most discussions of supersymmetric grand unified theories assume universality of the soft supersymmetry breaking terms at the grand scale. We point out that the behaviour of these theories might change significantly in the presence of nonuniversal soft terms. Particularly in SO(10)-like models with a large value of tanβ we observe a decisive change of predictions, allowing the presence of relatively light gauginos as well as small supersymmetric corrections to the b-quark mass. Some results remain rather stable, including the µ-M 1/2 correlation. Models with small tanβ seem to be less affected by non-universality which mainly leads to the new possibility of small m 0 (i.e. the squark and slepton soft mass parameter), excluded in the universal case.

We give a detailed discussion of the matching of the BPS states of heterotic, type I and type I X theories in d s 9 for Ž .X general backgrounds. This allows us to explicitly identify these composite brane states in the type I theory that lead to Ž . Ž . gauge symmetry enhancement at critical points in moduli space. An example is the enhancement of SO 16 = SO 16 to E = E . q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.

We analyze the implications of the light gluino scenario for the unification of gauge and Yukawa couplings within the minimal supersymmetric standard model. Within this scheme all fermionic supersymmetric particles are naturally light, while the scalar partners of quarks and leptons, together with the heavy Higgs doublet may be heavy. This implies both a bound on tan β < 2.3, in order to fulfill the experimental constraints on the chargino masses, and a strong correlation between sin 2 θ W (M Z ) and α 3 (M Z ), due to the suppression of the supersymmetric threshold corrections to the low energy values of the gauge couplings. Assuming the scalar sparticles to be lighter than 10 TeV, the physical top quark mass is constrained to be 145 GeV < M t < 210 GeV for tan β > 1, while the strong gauge coupling values, 0.122 ≤ α 3 (M Z ) ≤ 0.133, are in good agreement with the measured LEP ones. We also show that a relaxation of some of the conventional assumptions is necessary in order to achieve the radiative breaking of the electroweak symmetry within the grand unification scheme. * On leave from the

We give a short introduction to the concept of low energy supersymmetric models and their phenomenological predictions. In view of the future LEP II results we have to parametrize these predictions in a model independent way without too many simplifying assumptions. The study must therefore include models with {\it non--universal} soft supersymmetry breaking terms. We show that such non--universalities might have significant influence on the properties of these models.Comment: 10 pages, TUM-HEP-205/94 (Latex file plus uuencoded postscript file, please observe instructions). Talk presented by H.P. Nilles at the Zeuthen Workshop on Elementary Particle Theory--Physics at LEP200 and Beyond and Beyond,Teupitz/Brandenburg, Germany, 10--15 April, 199