Infinite-dimensional symmetry

Infinite-dimensional symmetry opens up possibility of a new physics—and new particles

'Both the mechanism reconciling the electric charges of the particles, and the improvement incorporating the weak force proved to belong to a symmetry group known as E10. Unlike the symmetry groups previously used in unification theories, E10 is an infinite group, very poorly studied even in the purely mathematical sense. Prof. Nicolai with Thibault Damour and Marc Henneaux had worked on this group before, because it appeared as a symmetry in N=8 supergravity under conditions similar to those during the first moments after the Big Bang, when only one dimension was significant: time.' 

'"For the first time, we have a scheme that precisely anticipates the composition of the fermions in the Standard Model—quarks and leptons—and does so with the proper electric charges. At the same time it includes gravity into the description. It is a huge surprise that the proper symmetry is the staggeringly huge symmetry group E10, virtually unknown mathematically. If further work confirms the role of this group, that will mean a radical change in our knowledge of the symmetries of nature," Prof. Meissner says.'