Abstract
The discrepancy between the measured and theoretical production cross section of b quarks at the Fermilab Tevatron can probably be explained by the recently proposed scenario of light gluinos of mass 12-16 GeV and light sbottoms of mass 2-5.5 GeV. In this scenario, we study a related process at the Z pole, Z→bb̃* 1 g̃ + b̄b̃ 1 g̃ followed by g̃→bb̃*/b̄b̃ 1 . The hadronic branching ratio for this channel is (1-3)×10 -3 , which is of the order of the size of the uncertainty in R b . We find that a typical event consists of an energetic prompt bottom jet back to back with a "fat" bottom jet, which consists of a bottom quark and two bottom squarks. Such events with a 10 -3 branching ratio may affect the measurement of R b ; they are even more interesting if the fat bottom jet can be identified. © 2003 The American Physical Society.