No Arabic abstract
The tremendous phenomenological success of the Standard Model (SM) suggests that its flavor structure and gauge interactions may not be arbitrary but should have a fundamental first-principle explanation. In this work, we explore how the basic distinctive properties of the SM dynamically emerge from a unified New Physics framework tying together both flavour physics and Grand Unified Theory (GUT) concepts. This framework is suggested by the gauge Left-Right-Color-Family Grand Unification under the exceptional $mathrm{E}_8$ symmetry that, via an orbifolding mechanism, yields a supersymmetric chiral GUT containing the SM. Among the most appealing emergent properties of this theory is the Higgs-matter unification with a highly-constrained massless chiral sector featuring two universal Yukawa couplings close to the GUT scale. At the electroweak scale, the minimal SM-like effective field theory limit of this GUT represents a specific flavored three-Higgs doublet model consistent with the observed large hierarchies in the quark mass spectra and mixing already at tree level.
We explore the potential of ultimate unification of the Standard Model matter and gauge sectors into a single $E_8$ superfield in ten dimensions via an intermediate Pati-Salam gauge theory. Through a consistent realisation of a $mathbb{T}^6/(mathbb{Z}_6times mathbb{Z}_2)$ orbifolding procedure accompanied by the Wilson line breaking mechanism and Renormalisation Group evolution of gauge couplings, we have established several benchmark scenarios for New Physics that are worth further phenomenological exploration.
We exploit a recent advance in the study of topological superconductors to propose a solution to the family puzzle of particle physics in the context of SO(18) (or more correctly, Spin(18)) grand unification. We argue that Yukawa couplings of intermediate strength may allow the mirror matter and extra families to decouple at arbitrarily high energies. As was clear from the existing literature, we have to go beyond the Higgs mechanism in order to solve the family puzzle. A pattern of symmetry breaking which results in the SU(5) grand unified theory with horizontal or family symmetry USp(4) = Spin(5) (or more loosely, SO(5)) leaves exactly three light families of matter and seems particularly appealing. We comment briefly on an alternative scheme involving discrete non-abelian family symmetries. In a few lengthy appendices we review some of the pertinent condensed matter theory.
Gauge-Higgs grand unification is formulated. By extending $SO(5) times U(1)_X$ gauge-Higgs electroweak unification, strong interactions are incorporated in $SO(11)$ gauge-Higgs unification in the Randall-Sundrum warped space. Quarks and leptons are contained in spinor and vector multiplets of $SO(11)$. Although the KK scale can be as low as $10 $ TeV, proton decay is forbidden by a conserved fermion number in the absence of Majorana masses of neutrinos.
We use the $SU(5)$ model to show the presence in grand unified theories of an electroweak monopole and a magnetic dumbbell (meson) made up of a monopole-antimonopole pair connected by a $Z$-magnetic flux tube. The monopole is associated with the spontaneous breaking of the weak $SU(2)_L$ gauge symmetry by the induced vacuum expectation value of a heavy scalar $SU(2)_L$ triplet with zero weak hypercharge contained in the adjoint Higgs 24-plet. This monopole carries a Coulomb magnetic charge of $(3/4) (2pi/e)$ as well as $Z$-magnetic charge, where $2pi/e$ denotes the unit Dirac magnetic charge. Its total magnetic charge is $sqrt{3/8}(4pi/e)$, which is in agreement with the Dirac quantization condition. The monopole weighs about 700 GeV, but because of the attached $Z$-magnetic tube it exists, together with the antimonopole, in a magnetic dumbbell configuration whose mass is expected to lie in the TeV range. The presence of these topological structures in $SU(5)$ and $SO(10)$ and in their supersymmetric extensions provides an exciting new avenue for testing these theories in high-energy colliders.
We discuss gauge coupling unification in models with additional 1 to 4 complete vector-like families, and derive simple rules for masses of vector-like fermions required for exact gauge coupling unification. These mass rules and the classification scheme are generalized to an arbitrary extension of the standard model. We focus on scenarios with 3 or more vector-like families in which the values of gauge couplings at the electroweak scale are highly insensitive to the grand unification scale, the unified gauge coupling, and the masses of vector-like fermions. Their observed values can be mostly understood from infrared fixed point behavior. With respect to sensitivity to fundamental parameters, the model with 3 extra vector-like families stands out. It requires vector-like fermions with masses of order 1 TeV - 100 TeV, and thus at least part of the spectrum may be within the reach of the LHC. The constraints on proton lifetime can be easily satisfied in these models since the best motivated grand unification scale is at $sim 10^{16}$ GeV. The Higgs quartic coupling remains positive all the way to the grand unification scale, and thus the electroweak minimum of the Higgs potential is stable.