Extra vectorlike matter and the lightest Higgs scalar boson mass in low-energy supersymmetry

The lightest Higgs scalar boson mass in supersymmetry can be raised significantly by extra vectorlike quark and lepton supermultiplets with large Yukawa couplings but dominantly electroweak-singlet masses. I consider models of this type that maintain perturbative gauge coupling unification. The impact of the new particles on precision electroweak observables is found to be moderate, with the fit to Z-pole data as good or better than that of the standard model even if the new Yukawa couplings are as large as their fixed-point values and the extra vectorlike quark masses are as light as 400 GeV. I study the size of corrections to the lightest Higgs boson mass, taking into account the fixed-point behavior of the scalar trilinear couplings. I also discuss the decay branching ratios of the lightest new quarks and leptons and general features of the resulting collider signatures.