Flavor symmetry has been widely studied for figuring out the masses and mixing angles of standard-model fermions. In this paper we present a framework for handling flavor symmetry breaking where the symmetry breaking is triggered by boundary conditions of scalar fields in extra-dimensional space. The alignment of scalar expectation values is achieved without referring to any details of scalar potential and its minimization procedure. As applications to non-abelian discrete flavor symmetries, illustrative lepton mass models are constructed where the S3 and A4 flavor symmetries are broken down to the directions leading to the tri-bimaximal form of lepton mixing and realistic mass patterns.
We explore calculable models with low-energy supersymmetry where the flavor hierarchy is generated by quark and lepton compositeness, and where the composites emerge from the same sector that dynamically breaks supersymmetry. The observed pattern of Standard Model fermion masses and mixings is obtained by identifying the various generations with composites of different dimension in the ultraviolet. These single-sector supersymmetry breaking models give rise to various spectra of soft masses which are, in many cases, quite distinct from what is commonly found in models of gauge or gravity mediation. In typical models which satisfy all flavor-changing neutral current constraints, both the first and second generation sparticles have masses of order 20 TeV, while the stop mass is near 1 TeV. In other cases, all sparticles obtain masses of order 1 TeV predominantly from gauge mediation, even though the first two generations are composite.
Assuming the ${bar D}^0, D^-, D^-_s$ and $B^+, B^0, B_s^0$ mesons belong to triplets of SU(3) flavor symmetry, we analyse the form factors in the semileptonic decays of these mesons. Both quark and meson mass differences are taken into account. We find a number of relations, in agreement with the present data as well as with previous analyses, and predict certain ratios of form factors, not yet measured, most notably the D meson decay constant $f_D = 209 pm 39$ MeV.
We study the effects of flavor symmetry breaking on holographic dense matter and compact stars in the D4/D6 model. To this end, two light flavors and one intermediate mass flavor are considered. For two light quarks, we investigate how the strong isospin violation affects the properties of holographic dense matter and compact stars. We observe that quark-antiquark condensates are flavor dependent and show interesting behavior near the transition from dense matter with only one flavor to matter with two flavors. An intermediate mass quark is introduced to investigate the role of the third flavor. The mass-radius relations of holographic compact stars with three flavors show that the mass-radius curve changes drastically at a transition density from which the third flavor begins to appear in the matter.
Finite-volume effects in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) have been a subject of much theoretical interest for more than two decades. They are in particular important for the analysis and interpretation of QCD simulations on a finite, discrete space-time lattice. Most of these effects are closely related to the phenomenon of spontaneous breaking of the chiral flavor symmetry and the emergence of pions as light Goldstone bosons. These long-range fluctuations are strongly affected by putting the system into a finite box, and an analysis with different methods can be organized according to the interplay between pion mass and box size. The finite volume also affects critical behavior at the chiral phase transition in QCD. In the present review, I will be mainly concerned with modeling such finite volume effects as they affect the thermodynamics of the chiral phase transition for two quark flavors. I review recent work on the analysis of finite-volume effects which makes use of the quark-meson model for dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. To account for the effects of critical long-range fluctuations close to the phase transition, most of the calculations have been performed using non-perturbative Renormalization Group (RG) methods. I give an overview over the application of these methods to a finite volume. The method, the model and the results are put into the context of related work in random matrix theory for very small volumes, chiral perturbation theory for larger volumes, and related methods and approaches. They are applied towards the analysis of finite-volume effects in lattice QCD simulations and their interpretation, mainly in the context of the chiral phase transition for two quark flavors.
We derive analytic necessary and sufficient conditions for the vacuum stability of the left-right symmetric model by using the concepts of copositivity and gauge orbit spaces. We also derive the conditions sufficient for successful symmetry breaking and the existence of a correct vacuum. We then compare results obtained from the derived conditions with those from numerical minimization of the scalar potential. Finally, we discuss the renormalization group analysis of the scalar quartic couplings through an example study that satisfies vacuum stability, perturbativity, unitarity and experimental bounds on the physical scalar masses.