Gauge Mediated Proton Decay in a Renormalizable SUSY SO(10) with Realistic Mass Matrices

Proton decay via d=5 operators is excluded by now not only in the framework of SUSY SU(5) but also its extensions like SUSY SO(10) are on the verge of being inconsistent with d=5 decays. It is reasonable therefore to suppress, e.g. by a symmetry, the d=5 operators and to consider gauge boson induced d=6 decays. This is suggested in several recent papers in the framework of models with a lighter $ M_X$. We discuss here explicitly the fermionic sector of such a renormalizable SUSY SO(10) with realistic mass matrices. We find that the recently ``observed'' large leptonic mixing leads to an enhancement of the nucleon decay channels involving $\mu$'s and in particular the $\mu^+\pi^o$, $\mu^+\pi^-$ modes.