Breaking democracy with non renormalizable mass terms

The exact democratic structure for the quark mass matrix, resulting from the action of the family symmetry group $A_{3L}\times A_{3R}$, is broken by the vaccum expectation values of heavy singlet fields appearing in non renormalizable dimension 6 operators. Within this specific context of breaking of the family symmetry we formulate a very simple ansatz which leads to correct quark masses and mixings.Comment: 6 pages, RevTe

Spin and abelian electromagnetic duality on four-manifolds

We investigate the electromagnetic duality properties of an abelian gauge theory on a compact oriented four-manifold by analysing the behaviour of a generalised partition function under modular transformations of the dimensionless coupling constants. The true partition function is invariant under the full modular group but the generalised partition function exhibits more complicated behaviour depending on topological properties of the four-manifold concerned. It is already known that there may be "modular weights" which are linear combinations of the Euler number and Hirzebruch signature of the four-manifold. But sometimes the partition function transforms only under a subgroup of the modular group (the Hecke subgroup). In this case it is impossible to define real spinor wave functions on the four-manifold. But complex spinors are possible provided the background magnetic fluxes are appropriately fractional rather that integral. This gives rise to a second partition function which enables the full modular group to be realised by permuting the two partition functions, together with a third. Thus the full modular group is realised in all cases. The demonstration makes use of various constructions concerning integral lattices and theta functions that seem to be of intrinsic interest.Comment: 29 pages, Plain Te

A Highly Predictive Ansatz for Leptonic Mixing and CP Violation

We suggest a simple highly predictive ansatz for charged lepton and light neutrino mass matrices, based on the assumption of universality of Yukawa couplings. Using as input the charged lepton masses and light neutrino masses, the six parameters characterizing the leptonic mixing matrix $V_{PMNS}$, are predicted in terms of a single phase $\phi$, which takes a value around $\phi={\frac{\pi}{2}}$. Correlations among variuos physical quantities are obtained, in particular $V^{PMNS}_{13}$ is predicted as a function of ${\Delta}m^2_{21}$, ${\Delta}m^2_{31}$ and $\sin^2(\theta_{sol})$, and restricted to the range $0.167<|V^{PMNS}_{13}|<0.179$.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

CP Violation and Flavour Mixings in Orbifold GUTs

We address the flavour problem by incorporating the hypothesis of universal strength of Yukawa couplings in the framework of a 5D GUT model compactified on an $S^1/(Z_2 \times Z_2^{\prime})$ orbifold. We show that a quantitatively successful picture of fermion masses and mixings emerges from the interplay between the bulk suppression factors of geometric origin and the phases of the Yukawa matrices. We give an explicit example, where we obtain a good fit for both the CKM and PMNS matrices.Comment: 8 pages, no figures; v2: minor changes, published in Phys Rev D (Rapid Communication

Non-Factorizable Phases, Yukawa Textures and the Size of sin (2 beta)

We emphasize the crucial r\^ ole played by non-factorizable phases in the analysis of the Yukawa flavour structure performed in weak bases with Hermitian mass matrices and with vanishing $(1,1)$ entries. We show that non-factorizable phases are important in order to generate a sufficiently large $\sin 2 \beta$. A method is suggested to reconstruct the flavour structure of Yukawa couplings from input experimental data both in this Hermitian basis and in a non-Hermitian basis with a maximal number of texture zeros. The corresponding Froggatt--Nielsen patterns are presented in both cases.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure