GRAND UNIFIED THEORY

Diana Rose Valencerina

Discussion and Terms

The fact that weak and electromagnetic interactions can be unified into a single theory suggests that the strong
interactions should somehow be included as well. Such theories were called "Grand Unified Theories", or GUTs. A
grand unified theory is a theory that will reconcile the electroweak force (the unified forces of electricity and
magnetism) and the strong force (the force that binds quarks within the atomic nucleus together).

How might this work?

A rough estimate puts this energy scale at 1016 GeV - the grand unification scale. A grand unified theory of
physics is not within the reach of our present technology and there are also theoretical obstacles to formulating a
Grand unified theory.
A grand unified theory that could subsequently incorporate gravitational theory would, become the ultimate
unified theory, often referred to by physicists as a "theory of everything" (TOE). The technological barriers to a unified
theory are a consequence of the tremendous energies required to verify the existence of the particles predicted by the
theory. In essence, experimental physicists are called upon to recreate the conditions of the universe that existed
during the first few millionths of a second of the Big bang - when the universe was tremendously hot, dense, and
therefore energetic.
Sheldon Glashow, Stephen Weinberg, and Abdus Salam - unified electricity and magnetism with weak nuclear
force. Howard Georgi and Sheldon Glashow (1974) - proposed Grand Unified Theory (strong, electromagnetic, and
weak are all the same force)

The predicted energies necessary for this grand unification are some million million times greater than for the
Electro weak force such energies are simply beyond our reach on earth or anywhere else in the universe today. Yet
there was a time when such blisteringly high energy reigned supreme across the universe for a few fractions of a second
moments after the Big Bang the eponymous grand unification epoch saw three forces combined into one with truly
bizarre consequences.
CONSEQUENCES OF GUT
1. Proton Decay
2. Magnetic Monopoles
 MOMENTS AFTER THE BIGBANG
Bigbang
The Big Bang is an event that gave birth to the observable Universe 13.8 billion years ago. The initial state of the Big
Bang was extremely high temperatures, density, and pressure, yet the volume is minimal. At this point, nothing really
exists. Even light does not exist.

Planck Epoch (Theory of Everything)

The Universe’s entire mass, squeezed into a nearly invisible dot. In such conditions, temperatures are still
unimaginably hot. The timeline of this epoch is the first 10-43 seconds after the Big Bang.

Grand Unified Epoch ( GUT – Gravity separates from 3 forces)

The Grand Unification Theory Era is all about the fundamental forces unifying and separating. The Grand Unified
Theory Era occurred in a fraction of a second, between 10-43 seconds and 10-36seconds.

Electroweak Epoch ( Electroweak- Strong force separates from 2 forces)

This epoch began when the Universe’s temperature had fallen enough to separate the strong force from the
electroweak force. The separation triggered the inflation of the Universe. The timeline of this epoch is between 10 -36
seconds and 10-12 seconds after the Big Bang.
CERN Large Hadron Collider
- is the most powerful accelerator in the world. It boosts particles, such as protons, which form all the
matter we know. Accelerated to a speed close to that of light, they collide with other protons. These
collisions produce massive particles, such as the Higgs boson or the top quark.
- discovered the Higgs boson, the particle that carries the Higgs field.

Quark Era ( All four fundamental forces separates)

During the quark era, the universe has expanded and temperatures have decreased to the point at which all four
fundamental forces have separated. Additionally, works began to take form as energies decreased.