Adding CP to flavour symmetries

I propose the use of CP-odd invariants, which are independent of basis and valid for any choice of CP transformation, as a powerful approach to study CP in the presence of flavour symmetries. As examples of the approach I focus on Lagrangians invariant under $Delta(27)$. I comment on the consequences of adding a specific CP symmetry to a Lagrangian and distinguish cases where several $Delta(27)$ singlets are present depending on how they couple to the triplets. One of the examples included is a very simple toy model with explicit CP violation with calculable phases, which is referred to as explicit geometrical CP violation by comparison with previously known cases of (spontaneous) geometrical CP violation.

Viable textures for the fermion sector

We consider a modification of the Fukuyama-Nishiura texture and compare it to the precision quark flavour data, finding that it fits the data very well but at the cost of accidental cancelations between parameters. We then propose different viable textures for quarks, where only the Cabibbo mixing arises from the down sector, and extend to the charged leptons while constructing a complementary neutrino structure that leads to viable lepton masses and mixing.

Reactor mixing angle from hybrid neutrino masses

In terms of its eigenvector decomposition, the neutrino mass matrix (in the basis where the charged lepton mass matrix is diagonal) can be understood as originating from a tribimaximal dominant structure with small deviations, as demanded by data. If neutrino masses originate from at least two different mechanisms, referred to as hybrid neutrino masses, the experimentally observed structure naturally emerges provided one mechanism accounts for the dominant tribimaximal structure while the other is responsible for the deviations. We demonstrate the feasibility of this picture in a fairly model-independent way by using lepton-number-violating effective operators, whose structure we assume becomes dictated by an underlying $A_4$ flavor symmetry. We show that if a second mechanism is at work, the requirement of generating a reactor angle within its experimental range always fixes the solar and atmospheric angles in agreement with data, in contrast to the case where the deviations are induced by next-to-leading order effective operators. We prove this idea is viable by constructing an $A_4$-based ultraviolet completion, where the dominant tribimaximal structure arises from the type-I seesaw while the subleading contribution is determined by either type-II or type-III seesaw driven by a non-trivial $A_4$ singlet (minimal hybrid model). After finding general criteria, we identify all the $mathbb{Z}_N$ symmetries capable of producing such $A_4$-based minimal hybrid models.

Golden ratio lepton mixing and nonzero reactor angle with $A_5$

We furnish a supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model with a flavour discrete symmetry $A_5$ under which the lepton fields transform as an irreducible triplet. Additional (`flavon) superfields are used to break $A_5$ into a $mathbb{Z}_2 times mathbb{Z}_2$ subgroup in the charged-lepton sector and another $mathbb{Z}_2$ subgroup in the neutrino sector. The first column of the resulting lepton mixing matrix is predicted and has entries which are related to the golden ratio. Using the observed $theta_{13}$ as input, our model predicts a solar mixing angle $theta_{12}$ in very good agreement with experiment; it also predicts a correlation between the atmospheric mixing angle $theta_{23}$ and the $CP$-violating Dirac phase $delta$.

An eigenvector based approach to neutrino mixing

We propose a model-independent analysis of the neutrino mass matrix through an expansion in terms of the eigenvectors defining the lepton mixing matrix, which we show can be parametrized as small perturbations of the tribimaximal mixing eigenvectors. This approach proves to be powerful and convenient for some aspects of lepton mixing, in particular when studying the sensitivity of the mass matrix elements to departures from their tribimaximal form. In terms of the eigenvector decomposition, the neutrino mass matrix can be understood as originating from a tribimaximal dominant structure with small departures determined by data. By implementing this approach to cases when the neutrino masses originate from different mechanisms, we show that the experimentally observed structure arises very naturally. We thus claim that the observed deviations from the tribimaximal mixing pattern might be interpreted as a possible hint of a ``hybrid nature of the neutrino mass matrix.

Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Flavor Symmetries and Consequences in Accelerators and Cosmology (FLASY12)

These are the proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Flavor Symmetries and Consequences in Accelerators and Cosmology, held 30 June 2012 - 4 July 2012, Dortmund, Germany.