Work

Superconducting strings in E 6

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: We discuss the appearance of superconducting strings in E 6 grand unification, keeping track of the magnetic monopole flux that precedes the formation of the string flux tube. This flux matching ensures compatibility with the quantum tunneling of a monopole-antimonopole pair on a metastable string. We identify two realistic E 6 models with superconducting (metastable) strings that also carry zero modes of the right-handed Majorana neutrinos and dark matter particles. Depending on the symmetry breaking scale associated with the strings, the latter could be a source of observable gravitational waves, intermediate scale dark matter, and the observed baryon asymmetry via leptogenesis. Topologically stable superconducting strings also appear if the E 6 symmetry breaking leaves unbroken the Z 2 subgroup of Z 4 , the center of SO(10). The zero modes of the Standard Model fermions are the charge carriers in this case. Finally, the flux matching condition ensures that the Aharonov-Bohm phase change in going around the metastable strings is an integer multiple of 2 π for all fields. The fields in the spinorial representation of SO(10) acquire a phase change of exp ( ± i π ) if taken around the topologically stable Z 2 string.

Source: Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

DOI: 10.1103/nym6-vpms

Authors: Rinku Maji, Qaisar Shafi

Institutions: Institute for Basic Science, University of Delaware

Language: English

Topic: Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Institute for Basic Science

Award: G4487476711