A new mechanism for a naturally small Dirac neutrino mass

A mechanism is proposed in which a right-handed neutrino zero mode and a right-handed charged lepton zero mode can be localized at the same place along an extra compact dimension while having markedly different spreads in their wave functions: a relatively narrow one for the neutrino and a rather broad one for the charged lepton. In their overlaps with the wave function for the left-handed zero modes, this mechanism could produce a natural large hierarchy in the effective Yukawa couplings in four dimensions, and hence a large disparity in masses.Comment: 6 pages (2 with figures), twocolumn forma