Minimal SU(5) Resuscitated by Long-Lived Quarks and Leptons
Abstract
The issue of gauge unification in the (non-supersymmetric) Standard Model is reinvestigated. It is found that with just an additional fourth generation of non-sequential and long-lived quarks and leptons, SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) gauge couplings converge to a common point of approximately 3.5x1015 GeV (corresponding to a proton lifetime of approximately 1034 plus/minus 1 years). This result is due to the non-negligible- but still perturbative- contributions of the top and fourth generation Yukawa couplings to the gauge two-loop beta functions, in contrast with the three generation case where such a contribution is too small to play an important role in unification.
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