Universal Landau Pole

Abstract

Our understanding of quantum gravity suggests that at the Planck scale the usual geometry loses its meaning. If so, the quest for grand unification in a large non-Abelian group naturally endowed with the property of asymptotic freedom may also lose its motivation. Instead, we propose a unification of all fundamental interactions at the Planck scale in the form of a universal Landau pole, at which all gauge couplings diverge. The Higgs quartic coupling also diverges while the Yukawa couplings vanish. The unification is achieved with the addition of fermions with vector gauge couplings coming in multiplets and with hypercharges identical to those of the standard model. The presence of these particles also prevents the Higgs quartic coupling from becoming negative, thus avoiding the instability (or metastability) of the standard model vacuum.