Leptophobic U(1)'s and the R_b - R_c Crisis

In this paper, we investigate the possibility of explaining both the R_b excess and the R_c deficit reported by the LEP experiments through Z-Z' mixing effects. We have constructed a set of models consistent with a restrictive set of principles: unification of the Standard Model (SM) gauge couplings, vector- like additional matter, and couplings which are both generation-independent and leptophobic. These models are anomaly-free, perturbative up to the GUT scale, and contain realistic mass spectra. Out of this class of models, we find three explicit realizations which fit the LEP data to a far better extent than the unmodified SM or MSSM and satisfy all other phenomenological constraints which we have investigated. One realization, the \eta-model coming from E_6, is particularly attractive, arising naturally from geometrical compactifications of heterotic string theory. This conclusion depends crucially on the inclusion of a U(1) kinetic mixing term, whose value is correctly predicted by renormalization group running in the E_6 model given one discrete choice of spectra.