No Arabic abstract
To address the issue of whether tri-bimaximal mixing (TBM) is a softly-broken hidden or an accidental symmetry, we adopt a model-independent analysis in which we perturb a neutrino mass matrix leading to TBM in the most general way but leave the three texture zeros of the diagonal charged lepton mass matrix unperturbed. We compare predictions for the perturbed neutrino TBM parameters with those obtained from typical SO(10) grand unified theories with a variety of flavor symmetries. Whereas SO(10) GUTs almost always predict a normal mass hierarchy for the light neutrinos, TBM has a priori no preference for neutrino masses. We find, in particular for the latter, that the value of |U_{e3}| is very sensitive to the neutrino mass scale and ordering. Observation of |U_{e3}|^2 > 0.001 to 0.01 within the next few years would be incompatible with softly-broken TBM and a normal mass hierarchy and would suggest that the apparent TBM symmetry is an accidental symmetry instead. No such conclusions can be drawn for the inverted and quasi-degenerate hierarchy spectra.
We construct a model for tri-bimaximal lepton mixing which employs only family symmetries and their soft breaking; neither vacuum alignment nor supersymmetry, extra dimensions, or non-renormalizable terms are used in our model. It is an extension of the Standard Model making use of the seesaw mechanism with five right-handed neutrino singlets. The scalar sector comprises four Higgs doublets and one complex gauge singlet. The horizontal symmetry of our model is based on the permutation group S_3 of the lepton families together with the three family lepton numbers--united this constitutes a symmetry group Delta(6infty^2). The model makes no predictions for the neutrino masses.
We propose an extension of tri-bimaximal mixing to include a non-zero reactor angle $theta_{13}$ while maintaining the tri-bimaximal predictions for the atmospheric angle $theta_{23}=45^o$ and solar angle $theta_{12}=35^o$. We show how such tri-bimaximal-reactor mixing can arise at leading order from the(type I) see-saw mechanism with partially constrained sequential dominance. Partially constrained sequential dominance can be realized in GUT models with a non-Abelian discrete family symmetry, such as $A_4$, spontaneously broken by flavons with a particular vacuum alignment.
We present a flavor model of quarks and leptons with the non-Abelian discrete symmetry $S_4$ in the framework of the SU(5) SUSY GUT. Three generations of $bar 5$-plets in SU(5) are assigned to ${bf 3}$ of $S_4$ while the first and second generations of 10-plets in SU(5) are assigned to ${bf 2}$ of $S_4$, and the third generation of 10-plet is assigned to ${bf 1}$ of $S_4$. Right-handed neutrinos are also assigned to ${bf 2}$ for the first and second generations and ${bf 1}$ for the third generation. We predict the Cabibbo angle as well as the tri-bimaximal mixing of neutrino flavors. We also predict the non-vanishing $U_{e3}$ of the neutrino flavor mixing due to higher dimensional mass operators. Our predicted CKM mixing angles and the CP violation are consistent with experimental values. We also study SUSY breaking terms in the slepton sector. Our model leads to smaller values of flavor changing neutral currents than the present experimental bounds.
We analyze in detail the predictions of trimaximal neutrino mixing, which is defined by a mixing matrix with identical second column elements. This column is therefore identical to the second column in the case of tri-bimaximal mixing. We also generalize trimaximal mixing by assuming that the other rows and columns of the mixing matrix individually have the same forms as for tri-bimaximal mixing. The phenomenology of these new mixing scenarios is studied. We emphasize how trimaximal mixings can be distinguished experimentally from broken tri-bimaximal mixing.
We study the CP violation in the deviation from the tri-bimaximal mixing (TBM) of neutrinos. We examine non-trivial relations among the mixing angles and the CP violating Dirac phase in the typical four cases of the deviation from the TBM. The first two cases are derived by the additional rotation of the 2-3 or 1-3 generations of neutrinos in the TBM basis. The other two cases are given by the additional rotation of the 1-3 or 1-2 generations of charged leptons with the TBM neutrinos. These four cases predict different relations among three mixing angles and the CP violating Dirac phase. The rotation of the 2-3 generations of neutrinos in the TBM basis predicts $sin ^2theta _{12}<1/3$, and the CP violating Dirac phase to be $pm (0.09pisim 0.76pi)$ for NH ($pm (0.15pisim 0.73pi) text{for IH}$) depending on $sin ^2theta _{23}$. The rotation of the 1-3 generations of neutrinos in the TBM basis gives $sin ^2theta _{12}>1/3$. The CP violating Dirac phase is not constrained by the input of the present experimental data. For the case of the 1-3 and 1-2 rotations of charged leptons in the TBM basis, the CP violating Dirac phase is predicted in $pm(0.35pisim 0.60pi)$ depending on $sin ^2theta _{12}$ for both NH and IH cases. We also discuss the specific case that $theta_{13}$ is related with the Cabibbo angle $lambda$ such as $sintheta_{13}=lambda/sqrt{2}$, in which the maximal CP violation is preferred. The CP violating Dirac phase can distinguish the lepton flavor mixing patterns at T2K and NO$ u$A experiments in the future.