We propose a new model which can naturally explain origins of fermion generations, quark mass hierarchy, and Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix simultaneously from geometry of an extra dimension. We take the extra dimension to be an interval with point
interactions, which are additional boundary points in the bulk space of the interval. Because of the Dirichlet boundary condition for fermion at the positions of point interactions, profiles of chiral fermion zero modes are split and localized, and then we can realize three generations from each five-dimensional Dirac fermion. Our model allows fermion flavor mixing but the form of non-diagonal elements of fermion mass matrices is found to be severely restricted due to geometry of the extra dimension. The Robin boundary condition for a scalar leads to an extra coordinate-dependent vacuum expectation value, which can naturally explain the fermion mass hierarchy.
We discuss gauge symmetry breaking in a general framework of gauge theories on an interval. We first derive a possible set of boundary conditions for a scalar field, which are compatible with several consistency requirements. It is shown that with th
ese boundary conditions the scalar field can acquire a nontrivial vacuum expectation value even if the scalar mass square is positive. Any nonvanishing vacuum expectation value cannot be a constant but, in general, depends on the extra dimensional coordinate of the interval. The phase diagram of broken/unbroken gauge symmetry possesses a rich structure in the parameter space of the length of the interval, the scalar mass and the boundary conditions. We also discuss 4d chiral fermions and fermion mass hierarchies in our gauge symmetry breaking scenario.
We systematically formulate a hierarchy of isospectral Hamiltonians in one-dimensional supersymmetric quantum mechanics on an interval and on a circle, in which two successive Hamiltonians form N=2 supersymmetry. We find that boundary conditions comp
atible with supersymmetry are severely restricted. In the case of an interval, a hierarchy of, at most, three isospectral Hamiltonians is possible with unique boundary conditions, while in the case of a circle an infinite tower of isospectral Hamiltonians can be constructed with two-parameter family of boundary conditions.
We study compactified pure gauge/gravitational theories with gauge-fixing terms and show that these theories possess quantum mechanical SUSY-like symmetries between unphysical degrees of freedom. These residual symmetries are global symmetries and ge
nerated by quantum mechanical N=2 supercharges. Also, we establish new one-parameter family of gauge choices for higher-dimensional gravity, and calculate as a check of its validity one graviton exchange amplitude in the lowest tree-level approximation. We confirm that the result is indeed $xi$-independent and the cancellation of the $xi$-dependence is ensured by the residual symmetries. We also give a simple interpretation of the vDVZ-discontinuity, which arises in the lowest tree-level approximation, from the supersymmetric point of view.
