Strong Coupling Running, Gauge Coupling Unification and the Scale of New Physics

TL;DR

This paper combines LHC and Z peak data to analyze gauge coupling unification, strongly supporting supersymmetry and suggesting new physics could be accessible at the LHC.

Contribution

It provides a combined analysis of experimental data and unification theory, constraining the scales of supersymmetry and new physics with high precision.

Findings

Supersymmetric unification fits CMS data well.

Favored SUSY scale is approximately 2.8 TeV.

GUT scale is around 10^16 GeV.

Abstract

The apparent unification of gauge couplings in Grand Unified Theories around 10$^{16}$ GeV is one of the strong arguments in favor of Supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model. In this paper, an analysis of the measurements of the strong coupling running from the CMS experiment at the LHC is combined with a "traditional" gauge coupling unification analysis using data at the Z peak. This approach places powerful constraints on the possible scales of new physics and on the parameters around the unification scale. A supersymmetric analysis without GUT threshold corrections describes the CMS data well and provides perfect unification. The favored scales are $M_{SUSY}\ =\ 2820\ +670\ -540$ GeV and $M_{GUT}\ =\ 1.05 \pm 0.06 \cdot 10^{16}$ GeV. For zero or small threshold corrections the scale of new physics may be well within LHC reach.