Perturbative SO(10) GUT and the Minimal Higgs Sector

TL;DR

This paper explores a minimal Higgs sector in SO(10) GUTs, demonstrating that four Higgs fields suffice for symmetry breaking and realistic fermion masses, while analyzing proton decay constraints.

Contribution

It presents a minimal Higgs sector for SO(10) GUTs capable of symmetry breaking and fermion mass generation, with implications for proton decay.

Findings

Four Higgs fields are sufficient for SO(10) breaking.

Proton decay constraints influence Yukawa operator structure.

The model achieves realistic fermion masses.

Abstract

The breaking of SO(10) to SU(3)_C x U(1)_EM can be accomplished by just four Higgs fields: the symmetric rank-two tensor, S(54); a pair of spinors, C(16) and Cbar(16bar); and a vector, T(10). This setup is also able to generate realistic fermion masses. The heavy color triplets in the vector and spinor fields mediate proton decay via dimension-five operators. The experimental bounds on proton decay constrain the structure and size of the Yukawa operators.