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 Fermilab 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.

• Received 12 August 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.55.1678