Nonuniversal GUT corrections to the soft terms and their implications in supergravity models

Potentially large nonuniversal corrections to the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters arise from their evolution between the Planck and the grand-unification scales. We detail typical patterns of nonuniversality in GUT models, as well as elaborate on their propagation to the weak scale and on their low-energy implications. Possible corrections to the different scalar quark and lepton masses and the Higgs and the gaugino-Higgsino sector parameters are described in detail, and new allowed regions of the parameter space are pointed out. In particular, the patterns studied often lead to heavier Higgsinos and t scalars. One-loop GUT threshold corrections to the soft parameters are also discussed and shown to be important.