HERA Data and Leptoquarks in Supersymmetry

Abstract

I present a concise review of the possible evidence for new physics at HERA and of the recent work towards a theoretical interpretation of the signal. It is not clear yet if the excess observed at large Q^2 is a resonance or a continuum (this tells much about the quality of the signal). I discuss both possibilities. For the continuum case one considers either modifications of the quark structure functions or contact terms. In the case of a resonance, a leptoquark, the most attractive possibility that is being studied is in terms of s-quarks with R-parity violation. In writing this script I updated the available information to include the new data and the literature presented up to August 1, 1997.