Comment on SU(16) grand unification

Abstract

In a recent paper on SU(16) grand unification, because of the presence of intermediate-energy gauge groups containing products of U(1) factors which are not orthogonal among themselves, the renormalization-group treatment has a few small errors. I correct it. I emphasize that one should not switch gauge couplings at the various thresholds. It is easier, and it avoids errors, to use throughout the gauge couplings of the standard model, and compute at each threshold, in the usual way, the extra contributions to the beta functions from the extra non-decoupled fields. I also point out that the SU(16) grand unification theory, due to the large number of scalars present in it, is not asymptotically free. It becomes a strong-coupling theory at energies only slightly larger than the unification scale.