In an attempt to explain the recent measurements on the radiative decays of the vector-mesons (V→Pγ), we study the consequences of introducing a small admixture of SU (3) singlet piece in the electromagnetic current. We find that this leads to an excellent fit of the theory with the new measurements on theV→Pγ decays. However, this addition adversely affects the fit of the leptonic decays of the vector mesons (V→e⁺e⁻) and of the radiative decay of the pion (π→2γ). We conclude that the overall fit to the available data does not favour a large (>10%) admixture of the SU(3) singlet. The decay rates have been calculated in the vectormeson dominance model. At the hadronic vertex (VVP), we assume asymptotic nonet symmetry. The electromagnetic couplings (V−γ) are the ones appropriate to vector-mixing.

We analyse all the neutral-current phenomena following from the general class of gauge models based on the group SU(2)_L ⊗ SU(2)_R ⊗ U(1). It is found that the neutral-current couplings in these models bear a remarkable similarity to those in the standard Weinberg-Salam gauge model. The parameter which plays the role of sin²ϑ_w is found to lie between 0 and 1/2. Comparison with experimental data shows that even a model with the ratio of the masses of the twoZ bosons as small as 1.9 is not ruled out.

We study in detail the factors that influence the unification relations among the coupling parameters of strong and electroweak interactions. We find that the factor that decides the unification relations in a theory is the fermion content of the theory. The specific ‘observed’ group of strong and electroweak interactions used and the specific unification group in which these interactions are embedded are largely irrelevant. In particular, we find that the unification value of the electroweak mixing angle is the same for almost all models of interest. We also explicitly illustrate that the canonical value 3/8 of the mixing angle is a characteristic result of the currently popular sequential doublets scheme of fermions. Addition of extra fermion singlets reduces the mixing angle to 1/4. We propose this sequential triplets scheme of fermions as an interesting alternative to the current scheme.

A general analysis of the renormalisation corrections to the unification results for the coupling constants of strong and electroweak interactions is attempted. In particular, the effects of introducing an energy scale intermediate between the unification energy and the low-energy regions are studied and found to be important. This analysis is applied to unification schemes of both kinds, namely, unification at superhigh energies, and unification at accessible energies.

Using the consistency requirements arising from the Coleman-Glashow null result for ‘tadpole’-type symmetry-breaking, we obtain a simple method of accounting for the SU(3) symmetry-breaking at theBBP-vertex, without introducing any new parameters. The results obtained are in excellent agreement with the available numbers. We extend the analysis to the charmed baryon couplings in order to accommodate SU(4)-breaking.