Family Universal Anomalous U(1) in Realistic Superstring Derived Models

An important issue in supersymmetry phenomenology is the suppression of squarks contributions to Flavor Changing Neutral Currents (FCNC). Recently it was noted that in some free fermionic three generation models the anomalous U(1) is family universal. It was further shown that if the $D$--term of the $U(1)_A$ is the dominant source of supersymmetry breaking, the squark masses are indeed approximately degenerate. In this paper I discuss the properties of the superstring models that give rise to the flavor universal anomalous U(1). The root cause for the universal $U(1)_A$ is the cyclic permutation symmetry, the characteristic property of the $Z_2\times Z_2$ orbifold compactification, realized in the free fermionic models by the NAHE set of boundary condition basis vectors. The properties of the three generation models that preserve this cyclic permutation symmetry in the flavor charges are discussed. The cyclic permutation symmetry of the $Z_2\times Z_2$ orbifold compactification is proposed to be the characteristic property, of phenomenological interest, that distinguishes it from other classes of superstring compactifications.