Unification in 5 D SO ( 10 )

Gauge unification in a five dimensional supersymmetric SO(10) model compactified on an orbifold S/(Z2 × Z ′ 2) is studied. One orbifolding reduces N = 2 supersymmetry to N = 1, and the other breaks SO(10) to the Pati-Salam gauge group SU(4)C × SU(2)L × SU(2)R. Further breaking to the standard model gauge group is made through the Higgs mechanism on one of the branes. The differences of the three gauge couplings run logarithmically even in five dimensions and we can keep the predictability for unification as in four dimensional gauge theories. We obtain an excellent prediction for gauge coupling unification with a cutoff scale M∗ ∼ 3 × 10 GeV and a compactification scale Mc ∼ 1.5×1014 GeV. Finally, although proton decay due to dimension 5 operators may be completely eliminated, the proton decay rate in these models is sensitive to the placement of matter multiplets in the 5th dimension, as well as to the unknown physics above the cutoff scale.