Confronting SO(10) GUTs with proton decay and gravitational waves

Understand

Grand Unified Theories (GUT) predict proton decay as well as the formation of cosmic strings which can generate gravitational waves.

• We determine which non-supersymmetric $SO(10)$ breaking chains provide gauge unification in addition to a gravitational signal from cosmic string decay.
• We calculate the GUT and intermediate scales for these $SO(10)$ breaking chains by solving the renormalisation group equations at the two-loop level.
• This analysis predicts the GUT scale, hence the proton lifetime, in addition to the scale of cosmic string generation and thus the associated gravitational wave signal.