Despite the successes of the Standard Model of particle physics, it is known to suffer from a number of deficiencies. Several of these can be addressed within non-supersymmetric theories of grand unification based on $$\text {SO}(10)$$ SO ( 10 ) . However, achieving gauge coupling unification in such theories is known to require additional physics below the unification scale, such as symmetry breaking in multiple steps. Many such models are disfavored due to bounds on the proton lifetime.

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... tions arising from threshold effects can, however, modify these conclusions. We analyze all seven relevant breaking chains with one intermediate symmetry breaking scale, assuming the "survival hypothesis" for the scalar masses. Two are allowed by proton lifetime and two are disfavored by a failure to unify the gauge couplings. The remaining three unify at a too low scale, but can be salvaged by various amounts of threshold corrections. We parametrize this and thereby rank the models by the size of the threshold corrections required to save them.