Extra matter at low energy.pdfVIP

a r X i v : h e p - p h / 0 2 1 1 0 6 6 v 1 5 N o v 2 0 0 2 FTUAM 02/31 IFT-UAM/CSIC-02-50 November 2002 Extra Matter at Low Energy? C. Mun?oz Departamento de F??sica Teo?rica C-XI and Instituto de F??sica Teo?rica C-XVI, Universidad Auto?noma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain E-mail: carlos.munnoz@uam.es Abstract Assuming that the Standard Model arises from the E8 × E8 Heterotic Super- string, we try to solve the discrepancy between the unification scale predicted by this theory (≈ gGUT × 5.27 · 10 17 GeV) and the value deduced from LEP experiments (≈ 2 · 1016 GeV). This will allow us to predict the presence at low energies of three generations of supersymmetric Higgses and vector-like colour triplets. ?Talk given at 1st International Conference on String Phenomenology, Oxford, 6-11 July 2002. 1 Introduction Although the Standard Model of particle physics provides a correct description of the observable world, there exist strong indications that it is just a low-energy effective theory. There is no answer in the context of the Standard Model to some fundamental questions. For example, how can we unify it with gravity? And then: How can we protect the masses of the scalar particles against quadratic divergences in perturbation theory (the so-called hierarchy problem)? Other questions cannot even be posed: Why is the Standard Model gauge group SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1)Y ? Why are there three families of particles? Why is the pattern of quark and lepton masses so weird? In fact, only Superstring Theory has the potential to unify all gauge interactions with gravity in a consistent way being able to answer all the above questions. In this sense, it is a crucial step to build a consistent Superstring Theory in four dimensions accommodating the observed Standard Model, i.e. we need to find the SuperString Standard Model (SSSM). In the late eighties, the compactification of the E8 × E8 Heterotic String on six- dimensional orbifolds proved to be an interesting met