UC Irvine

We discuss the results of a search for anomaly-free Abelian ZN discrete symmetries that lead to automatic R-parity conservation and prevent dangerous higher-dimensional proton decay operators in simple extensions of minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model based on the left-right symmetric group, the Pati-Salam group and SO(10). We require that the superpotential for the models have enough structures to be able to give correct symmetry breaking to minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model and potentially realistic fermion masses. We find viable models in each of the extensions, and for all the cases, anomaly freedom of the discrete symmetry restricts the number of generations. © 2007 The American Physical Society.