Links between neutrino oscillations,leptogenesis, and proton decay within supersymmetric grand unification

Evidence in favor of supersymmetric grand unification including that based on the observed family multiplet-structure, gauge coupling unification, neutrino oscillations, baryogenesis, and certain intriguing features of quark-lepton masses and mixings is noted. It is argued that attempts to understand (a) the tiny neutrino masses (especially Δm ²(v ₂ – v₃)), (b) the baryon asymmetry of the Universe (which seems to need leptogenesis), and (c) the observed features of fermion masses such as the ratiom _b/m_τ, the smallness ofV _cb and the maximality of seem to select out the route to higher unification based on an effective string-unifiedG(224) =SU(2)_L ×SU(2)_R ×SU(2)^c orSO(10)-symmetry that should be operative in 4D, as opposed to other alternatives. A predictiveSO(10)/G(224)-framework possessing supersymmetry is presented that successfully describes the masses and mixings of all fermions including neutrinos. It also accounts for the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe by utilizing the process of leptogenesis, which is natural to this framework. It is argued that a conservative upper limit on the proton lifetime within thisSO(10)/G(224)-framework, which is so far most successful, is given by x 10³⁴ years. This in turn strongly suggests that an improvement in the current sensitivity by a factor of five to ten (compared to SuperK) ought to reveal proton decay. Implications of this prediction for the next-generation nucleon decay and neutrino-detector are noted.