Intrinsic Deviation from the Tri-bimaximal Neutrino Mixing in a Class of A_4 Flavor Models

Abstract

It is well known that the tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing pattern V_0 can be derived from a class of flavor models with the non-Abelian A_4 symmetry. We point out that small corrections to V_0, which are inherent in the A_4 models and arise from both the charged-lepton and neutrino sectors, have been omitted in the previous works. We show that such corrections may lead the 3 \times 3 neutrino mixing matrix V to a non-unitary deviation from V_0, but they cannot result in a nonzero value of \theta_13 or any new CP-violating phases. Current experimental constraints on the unitarity of V allow us to constrain the model parameters to some extent.Comment: 11 pages, no figures; a reference added, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.