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Hypercharge Quantisation and Fermat's Last Theorem

by Nakarin Lohitsiri, David Tong

This Submission thread is now published as

Submission summary

Authors (as registered SciPost users): Nakarin Lohitsiri · David Tong
Submission information
Preprint Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.00514v3  (pdf)
Date accepted: 2020-01-22
Date submitted: 2020-01-16 01:00
Submitted by: Tong, David
Submitted to: SciPost Physics
Ontological classification
Academic field: Physics
Specialties:
  • Quantum Physics
Approach: Theoretical

Abstract

What values of the Standard Model hypercharges result in a mathematically consistent quantum field theory? We show that the constraints imposed by the lack of gauge anomalies can be recast as the equation x^3 + y^3 = z^3. If hypercharge is quantised, then x, y and z must be integers. The trivial (and only) solutions, with x=0 or y=0, reproduce the hypercharge assignments seen in Nature. This argument does not rely on the mixed gauge-gravitational anomaly, which is automatically vanishing if hypercharge is quantised and the gauge anomalies vanish.

Author comments upon resubmission

We thank the referees for their comments. And we apologise for the long delay in getting this updated.

List of changes

Added several new references as requested in the first report.

Added an extra, final paragraph discussing the right-handed neutrino, as requested in the second report.

Published as SciPost Phys. 8, 009 (2020)

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