Conventional SO(10) models involve more than one scale for a complete breaking of the GUT symmetry requiring further assumptions on the VEVs of the Higgs fields that enter in the breaking to achieve viable models. Recent works where the breaking can be accomplished at one scale are discussed. These include models with just a pair of 144 + 144 of Higgs fields. Further extensions of this idea utilizing 560 + 560 of Higgs representations allow both the breaking at one scale, as well as accomplish a natural doublet-triplet splitting via the missing partner mechanism. More generally, we discuss the connection of high scale models to low energy physics in the context of supergravity grand unification. Here we discuss a natural solution to the little hierarchy problem and also discuss the implications of the LHC data for supersymmetry. It is shown that the LHC data implies that most of the parameter space of supergravity models consistent with the data lie on the Hyperbolic Branch of radiative breaking of the electroweak symmetry and more specifically on the Focal Surface of the Hyperbolic Branch. A discussion is also given of the implications of recent LHC data on the Higgs boson mass for the discovery of supersymmetry and for the search for dark matter.Keywords: GUTs , supersymmetry, Higgs boson, LHC, dark matter.
GUTs and SupersymmetryIntoduction: Grand unification [1-3] for the description of particle interactions is desirable for a variety of reasons (For a review see [4]). We discuss some of the recent developments in unified models which are relevant in view of the hunt for new physics at the large hadron collider [5]. Of specific interest is the gauge symmetry based on SO(10) [3] which provides a framework for unifying the SU (3) C × SU (2) L × U (1) Y gauge groups and also for unifying quarks and leptons in one generation in a single 16-plet spinor representation. Additionally, the 16-plet also contains a right-handed singlet state, which is needed to give mass to the neutrino via the seesaw mechanism. Supersymmetric SO(10) models have the added attraction that they predict correctly the unification of gauge couplings, and solve the hierarchy problem by virtue of SUSY. However, SUSY SO(10) models, as usually constructed, have two drawbacks, both related to the symmetry breaking sector. First, there are two different mass scales involved in the breaking of the GUT symmetry, one to reduce the rank and the other to reduce the symmetry all the way to SU (3) C × SU (2) L × U (1) Y . Thus typically three types of Higgs fields are needed: one for rank reduction such as 16 + 16 of 126 + 126 and then a 45, 54 or 210 for breaking the symmetry down to the standard model symmetry, and a 10 plet for electroweak symmetry breaking. Second, the GUT models typically have the so called doublet-triplet problem where one needs an extreme fine tuning to make the Higgs doublets light. These drawbacks can be corrected in a new class of models recently proposed [6,7]. Here we will review first this class of models. We will th...