Coupling unification, GUT scale baryogenesis and neutron-antineutron oscillation in SO(10)

We show that unification of the three gauge couplings can be realized consistently in a class of non-supersymmetric SO(10) models with a one-step breaking to the Standard Model if a color sextet scalar field survives down to the TeV scale. Such scalars, which should be accessible to the LHC for direct detection, arise naturally in SO(10) as remnants of the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses. The diquark couplings of these scalars lead to Delta B = 2 baryon number violating processes such as neutron-antineutron oscillation. We estimate the free neutron-antineutron transition time to be tau(n-(n) over bar) approximate to (10(9)-10(12)) s, which is in the interesting range for next generation n-(n) over bar oscillation experiments. These models also realize naturally the recently proposed (B - L) violating GUT scale baryogenesis which survives to low temperatures unaffected by the electroweak sphaleron interactions. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.