Title: Aspects of the grand unification of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions
Abstract: We study issues arising in attempts to unify strong and other elementary particle interactions. The proton lifetime is estimated in theories with second-order baryon number violation, and found to be O(103–104) longer than naive dimensional counting suggested. The renormalization of quark and lepton masses below the grand unification mass is considered in some detail. Application is made to the SU(5) model of Georgi and Glashow, and we find strange and bottom quark masses: ms ≈ 0.4–0.5 GeV, mb ≈ 4.8–5.6 GeV. Inputs are the values of the strong interactions coupling constant favoured by electroproduction and charmonium analyses, and the observed muon and heavy lepton (τ) masses. These estimates are substantially increased if there are more than six flavours of quark. Symmetry breaking in the SU(5) model is studied, including radiative corrections to the effective Higgs potential.