The Pati–Salam model states that the
gauge group is either or and the fermions form three families, each consisting of the
representations and . This needs some explanation. The
center of is . The in the quotient refers to the two element subgroup generated by the element of the center corresponding to the two element of and the 1 elements of and . This includes the right-handed neutrino. See
neutrino oscillations. There is also a and/or a
scalar field called the
Higgs field which acquires a non-zero
vacuum expectation value (VEV). This results in a
spontaneous symmetry breaking from to or from to and also, : : : : : See
restricted representation. Of course, calling the
representations things like and is purely a physicist's convention(source?), not a mathematician's convention, where representations are either labelled by
Young tableaux or
Dynkin diagrams with numbers on their vertices, but still, it is standard among GUT theorists. The
weak hypercharge,
Y, is the sum of the two matrices: :\begin{pmatrix}\frac{1}{3}&0&0&0\\0&\frac{1}{3}&0&0\\0&0&\frac{1}{3}&0\\0&0&0&-1\end{pmatrix} \in \text{SU}(4), \qquad \begin{pmatrix}1&0\\0&-1\end{pmatrix} \in \text{SU}(2)_{\text{R}} It is possible to extend the Pati–Salam group so that it has two
connected components. The relevant group is now the
semidirect product \left ([\mathrm{SU}(4)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)_\mathrm{L}\times \mathrm{SU}(2)_\mathrm{R}]/\mathbf{Z}_2\right )\rtimes\mathbf{Z}_2. The last also needs explaining. It corresponds to an
automorphism of the (unextended) Pati–Salam group which is the
composition of an
involutive outer automorphism of which isn't an
inner automorphism with interchanging the left and right copies of . This explains the name left and right and is one of the main motivations for originally studying this model. This extra "
left-right symmetry" restores the concept of
parity which had been shown not to hold at low energy scales for the
weak interaction. In this extended model, is an
irrep and so is . This is the simplest extension of the minimal
left-right model unifying
QCD with
B−L. Since the
homotopy group :\pi_2\left(\frac{\mathrm{SU}(4)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)}{[\mathrm{SU}(3)\times \mathrm{U}(1)]/\mathbf{Z}_3}\right)=\mathbf{Z}, this model predicts
monopoles. See
't Hooft–Polyakov monopole. This model was invented by
Jogesh Pati and
Abdus Salam. This model doesn't predict gauge mediated
proton decay (unless it is embedded within an even larger GUT group). ==Differences from the SU(5) unification==