Standard model fermions and K(E10)

In recent work [1] it was shown how to rectify Gell-Mann's proposal for identifying the 48 quarks and leptons of the Standard Model with the 48 spin-12 fermions of maximal SO(8) gauged supergravity remaining after the removal of eight Goldstinos, by deforming the residual U(1) symmetry at the SU(3) × U(1) stationary point of N=8 supergravity, so as to also achieve agreement of the electric charge assignments. In this Letter we show that the required deformation, while not in SU(8), does belong to K(E10), the ‘maximal compact’ subgroup of E10 which is a possible candidate symmetry underlying M theory. The incorporation of infinite-dimensional Kac–Moody symmetries of hyperbolic type, apparently unavoidable for the present scheme to work, opens up completely new perspectives on embedding Standard Model physics into a Planck scale theory of quantum gravity