Grand Unification in the `Landscape'

by Arthur Hebecker (Universität Heidelberg)

Tuesday 26 Jan 2010, 17:15 → 18:15 Europe/Berlin

Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Auditorium

Over the last few years, the new paradigm of the `String Theory Landscape' has been gaining popularity. The basis of this development is our improved understanding of the immense multitude of ways in which 6 of the 10 dimensions of string theory can be compactified. After briefly reviewing the phenomenologically successful idea of a `Grand Unification', I will discuss how this scenario might fit into the picture of the Landscape. In particular, a simple 5-dimensional model aimed at a geometrical understanding of the weakness of the unified gauge coupling will be discussed. This proposal has interesting implications for supersymmetry breaking, with potentially observable consequences at the Large Hadron Collider.