Proton stability in TeV-scale GUTs

Abstract

We discuss the proton decay problem in theories with low gravity and/or GUT scales. We pointed out that the gravity induced proton decay can be indeed suppressed up to a desired level, while the GUT origin of the proton instability is rather problematic. To solve this problem we suggest the GUT model where the proton is stable in all orders of perturbation theory. This can be simply achieved by the replication of quark-lepton families with ordinary quarks and leptons residing in different GUT representations and by an appropriate dimensional reduction. The model predicts extra mirror states which along with the GUT particles and the excitations of extra dimensions could be observable at high-energy colliders providing the unification scale is in the TeV range.