Unifying the electroweak and B-L interactions

TL;DR

This paper proposes a unified gauge symmetry framework combining electroweak and B-L interactions, offering explanations for dark matter stability, neutrino masses, inflation, and natural charge quantization, while addressing limitations of previous models.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive SU(3)_C x SU(3)_L x U(1)_X x U(1)_N gauge symmetry that unifies electroweak and B-L interactions, extending and improving upon previous 3-3-1 models.

Findings

Provides a consistent unification of electroweak and B-L interactions.

Explains dark matter stability via W-parity.

Addresses fermion generation number and charge quantization.

Abstract

We argue that the gauge symmetry which includes SU(3)_L as a higher weak-isospin symmetry is manifestly given by SU(3)_C\otimes SU(3)_L\otimes U(1)_X\otimes U(1)_N, where the last two factors determine the electric charge and B-L, respectively. This theory not only provides a consistent unification of the electroweak and B-L interactions, but also gives insights in dark matter, neutrino masses, and inflation. The dark matter belongs to a class of new particles that have wrong B-L numbers, and is stabilized due to a newly-realized W-parity as residual gauge symmetry. The B-L breaking field is important to define the W-parity, seesaw scales, and inflaton. Furthermore, the number of fermion generations and the electric charge quantization are explained naturally. We also show that the previous 3-3-1 models are only an effective theory as the B-L charge and the unitarity argument are violated. This work substantially generalizes our recently-proposed 3-3-1-1 model.