UPDATE OF THE EFFECT OF CASCADE DECAYS ON THE FERMILAB TEVATRON GLUINO AND SQUARK MASS BOUNDS

We present an improved and updated analysis of the effect of cascade decays on the gluino and squark mass bounds recently obtained by the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) Collaboration under the assumption that gluinos and squarks only decay to the lightest supersymmetric particle. We delineate regions of parameter space of the minimal model excluded by our cascade analysis, and combine these regions with regions excluded by recent CERN LEP data. We find that the gluino bound is diminished by 10-30 GeV from its CDF value depending on model parameters. We show that a gluino as light as 135 GeV is allowed, in contrast with the absolute lower bound of 150 GeV obtained by the CDF Collaboration. Corresponding bounds on the squark mass are reduced by typically 15-20 GeV, unless the lightest supersymmetric particle is very heavy.