Coloron Phenomenology

A flavor-universal extension of the strong interactions was recently proposed in response to the apparent excess of high-$E_T$ jets in the inclusive jet spectrum measured at the Tevatron. This paper studies the color octet of massive gauge bosons (`colorons') that is present in the low-energy spectrum of the model's Higgs phase. Constraints from searches for new particles decaying to dijets and from measurements of the weak-interaction $\rho$ parameter imply that the colorons must have masses greater than 870-1000 GeV. The implications of recent Tevatron data and the prospective input from future experiments are also discussed.