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Phys. Rev. D 69, 051301 (2004) [5 pages]

Quark-lepton interchangeability at high energy: [SU(3)]4 quartification

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K. S. Babu
Physics Department, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078, USA

Ernest Ma
Physics Department, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

S. Willenbrock
Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

Rapid Communication Received 7 August 2003; published 12 March 2004

We propose that quarks and leptons are interchangeable entities in the high-energy limit. This naturally results in the extension of [SU(3)]3 trinification to [SU(3)]4 quartification. In addition to the unbroken color SU(3)q of quarks, there is now also a color SU(3)l of leptons which reduces to an unbroken SU(2)l. We discuss the natural occurrence of SU(2)l doublets at the TeV energy scale, which leads remarkably to the unification of all gauge couplings without supersymmetry. Proton decay occurs through the exchange of scalar bosons, with a lifetime in the range 1034–1036 yr.


©2004 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.69.051301
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.69.051301
PACS: 12.10.Dm, 12.15.Ff

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