The conformal standard model from Berlin

The Conformal Standard Model - finally an attempt for a unified model in arixv! There have not been such speculations for years. Here it is: https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.06149  by Lewandowski, Meissner, and Nicolai.

So, what should we think about it? The model fits experiments and makes predictions: (few) new particles, dark matter is one of them, and a few more details. So far so good. We will wait for the experimental tests and then see what happens.

But there are reasons to be unsure. A number of questions are not addressed:

- How does the particle spectrum arise? No real answer is given.
- What determines the gauge groups? Is there any answer?
- How exactly do the gauge couplings arise? The answer in the paper is not so clear.
- What about mixing matrices, electric dipole moments and neutrino masses? No numbers are predicted, but (indirectly) ranges of values; so this might be plausible.
- Why does space have three dimensions? No answer is given.
- What happens at the Planck scale? No answer.
- Does inflation occur? No answer - but then, no one is needed anyway.

So what shall we think of the paper? The nice side about it: No supersymmetry, no axions, no strings, no loop quantum gravity. The more questionable side: new particles are predicted that nobody has seen yet.

If they are flowers, they will blossom!