YUKAWA COUPLING UNIFICATION WITH SUPERSYMMETRIC THRESHOLD CORRECTIONS

Radiative corrections to the down-type fermion masses at the supersymmetric threshold are enhanced by the ratio of vacuum expectation values, tanbeta. This can have a strong impact on the unification of Yukawa couplings in supersymmetric grand unified theories. We present an example of such a model with a horizontal gauge symmetry that naturally explains the fermion mass hierarchy and the small mixing angles of the Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix. The unification of the lepton and the down-quark Yukawa couplings is achieved without introducing large Higgs multiplets.