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arXiv · 1901.03251

Unification of Flavor, CP, and Modular Symmetries

Alexander Baur·Hans Peter Nilles·Andreas Trautner·Patrick K. S. Vaudrevange
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Abstract

Flavor symmetry plays a crucial role in the standard model of particle physics but its origin is still unknown. We develop a new method (based on outer automorphisms of the Narain space group) to determine flavor symmetries within compactified string theory. A picture emerges where traditional (discrete) flavor symmetries, CP-like symmetries and modular symmetries (like T-duality) of string theory combine to unified flavor symmetries. The groups depend on the geometry of compact space and the geographical location of fields in the extra dimensions. We observe a phenomenon of "local flavor groups" with potentially different flavor symmetries for the various sectors of quarks and leptons. This should allow interesting connections to existing bottom-up attempts in flavor model building.

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Alexander Baur, Hans Peter Nilles, Andreas Trautner, Patrick K. S. Vaudrevange. 2019-01-10. Unification of Flavor, CP, and Modular Symmetries. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2019.03.066

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