Enhancement of Proton Decay Rates in Supersymmetric SU(5) Grand Unified Models

Abstract

In the supersymmetric grand unified theories (SUSY GUTs), gauge bosons associated with the unified gauge group induce proton decay. We investigate the proton decay rate via the gauge bosons in the SUSY GUTs under the two situations; one is with extra vector-like multiplets, and the other is with heavy sfermions. It is found that the proton lifetime is significantly reduced in the former case, while in the latter case it is slightly prolonged. Determination of the particle contents and their mass spectrum below the GUT scale is important to predict the proton lifetime. The proton decay searches have started to access to the 10^16 GeV scale.