String unification, spaghetti diagrams and infra-red fixed points

The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), is perhaps the leading candidate for new physics beyond the standard model, but it encounters difficulties with string gauge unification and in addition does not shed any light on the question of fermion masses. We consider a scenario in which the MSSM is valid up to an energy scale of similar to 10(16) GeV, but that above this scale the theory is supplemented by extra vector-like representations of the gauge group, plus a gauged U(1)(X) family symmetry. In our approach the extra heavy matter above the scale similar to 10(16) GeV is used in two different ways: (1) to allow (two-loop) gauge coupling unification at the string scale; (2) to mix with quarks, leptons and Higgs fields via spaghetti diagrams and so lead to phenomenologically acceptable Yukawa textures. We determine the most economical models in which the extra matter can satisfy both constraints simultaneously. We then give a general discussion of the infra-red fixed points of such models, pointing out the conditions for infra-red stability, then discuss two semi-realistic examples: a Higgs mixing model, and a quark mixing model. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.