We calculate the prominent perturbative contributions shaping the one-loop scalar spectrum of the minimal renormalizable nonsupersymmetric SO(10) Higgs model whose unified gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken by an adjoint scalar. Focusing on its potentially realistic 45 circle plus 126 variant in which the rank is reduced by a vacuum expectation value of the 5-index antisymmetric self-dual tensor, we provide a thorough analysis of the corresponding Coleman-Weinberg one-loop effective potential, paying particular attention to the masses of the potentially tachyonic pseudo-Goldstone bosons transforming as (1, 3, 0) and (8, 1, 0) under the standard model (SM)gauge group.
The results confirm the assumed existence of extended regions in the parameter space supporting a locally stable SM-like quantum vacuum inaccessible at the tree level. The effective potential tedium is compared to that encountered in the previously studied 45. 16 SO(10) Higgs model where the polynomial corrections to the relevant pseudo-Goldstone masses turn out to be easily calculable within a very simplified purely diagrammatic approach.