LEPTOQUARKS IN SUSY UNIFIED MODELS AND THE HERA EVENTS

Motivated by the recent HERA events which are consistent with a possib le leptoquark interpretation, we discuss the prospects for including a dditional light colour triplets and anti-triplets in the spectrum of s upersymmetric unified theories. We focus on a particular string-inspir ed Pati-Salam model, and propose a simple mechanism by which a light c olour triplet of charge -1/3 plus anti-triplet of charge 1/3, may have a mass of order 200 GeV, with one of the new states having leptoquark couplings and with proton decay suppressed, We also discuss possible scenarios for gauge unification in such a model. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sci ence B.V.