String Theory and the Path to Unification: A Review of Recent Developments

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  • 9 February 1996
Abstract
This is a pedagogical review article surveying the various approaches towards understanding gauge coupling unification within string theory. As is well known, one of the major unsolved problems confronting string phenomenology has been an apparent discrepancy between the scale of gauge coupling unification predicted from string theory, and the unification scale expected within the framework of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). In this article, I provide an overview of different approaches that have been taken in recent years towards reconciling these two scales, and outline some of the major recent developments in each. These approaches include: 1) string GUT's 2) higher Kac-Moody levels and non-standard hypercharge normalizations 3) heavy string threshold corrections 4) light SUSY thresholds 5) effects from intermediate-scale gauge and matter structure beyond the MSSM, and 6) strings without supersymmetry. (This review article is based in part on work done in collaboration with Alon Faraggi and John March-Russell: hep-th/9505018, hep-th/9505046, and hep-th/9510223.)

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