Number of Fermion Generations Derived from Anomaly Cancellation
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2009-11-07 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We prove that global anomaly cancellation requires more than one generation of quarks and leptons, provided that the standard model fields propagate in two universal extra dimensions. Furthermore, if the fermions of different generations have the same gauge charges and chiralities, then global anomaly cancellation implies that there must be three generations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0102010,
title = {Number of Fermion Generations Derived from Anomaly Cancellation},
author = {Bogdan A. Dobrescu and Erich Poppitz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0102010},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
10 pages. Version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett.; a few clarifications and references added; two statements corrected on page 6 regarding supersymmetry and four extra dimensions