Horizontal symmetry in Higgs sector of GUT with U(1)_A symmetry
  In a series of papers, we pointed out that an anomalous $U(1)_A$ gauge symmetry naturally solves various problems in grand unified theories (GUTs) and that a horizontal gauge symmetry, $SU(2)_H$ or $SU(3)_H$, not only realizes the unification of three generation quarks and leptons in fewer multiplets but also solves the supersymmetric flavor problem. In this paper, we examine the possibility that the Higgs sectors of the GUT symmetry and of the horizontal symmetry are unified, that is, there are some Higgs fields whose vacuum expectation values (VEVs) break both the GUT gauge symmetry and the horizontal symmetry at the same time. Although the scale of the VEVs become too large to suppress the flavor changing neutral current processes sufficiently, the unification is possible. In addition, for the $SU(3)_H$ models, the $SU(3)_H$ gauge anomaly is cancelled in the unified models without introducing additional fields in contrast with the previous models in which the Higgs sectors are not unified. 
Nobuhiro Maekawa and Toshifumi Yamashita