Threshold effects in SO(10) models with one intermediate breaking scale

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Despite the successes of the Standard Model of particle physics, it is known to suffer from a number of deficiencies. Several of these can be addressed within non-supersymmetric theories of grand unification based on SO(10). However, achieving gauge coupling unification in such theories is known to require additional physics below the unification scale, such as symmetry breaking in multiple steps. Many such models are disfavored due to bounds on the proton lifetime. Corrections arising from threshold effects can, however, modify these conclusions. We analyze all seven relevant breaking chains with one intermediate symmetry breaking scale, assuming the “survival hypothesis” for the scalar masses. Two are allowed by proton lifetime and two are disfavored by a failure to unify the gauge couplings. The remaining three unify at a too low scale, but can be salvaged by various amounts of threshold corrections. We parametrize this and thereby rank the models by the size of the threshold corrections required to save them.
The authors wish to thank Sofiane M. Boucenna for collaboration in early stages of this project and Erik Sönnerlind for pointing out errors and clarifying issues with numerics in a draft of this manuscript. T.O. acknowledges support by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) through contract No. 2017-03934 and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology for a sabbatical period at the University of Iceland. M.P. thanks “Stiftelsen Olle Engkvist Byggmästare” and “Roland Gustafssons Stiftelse för teoretisk fysik” for financial support. Numerical computations were performed on resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at PDC Center for High Performance Computing (PDC-HPC) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden under project numbers SNIC 2018/3-559 and SNIC 2020/5-122.