The exact column texture: tree-level Yukawa universality in heterotic $Z_3 \times Z_3$ orbifolds

Abstract

On $T^6/(Z_3 \times Z_3)$ heterotic orbifolds where three quark generations arise from $Z_3$ fixed-point triplication, we prove that the leading-order tree-level Yukawa amplitude -- the three-point coupling among massless string states -- has an exact column texture: $Y_{\rm lead}(i,j) = c\,\varepsilon^{q_R[j]}$, with the $O(1)$ coefficient $c$ universal across all left-handed generations $i$. Five independent lines of evidence are given: (1) the worldsheet instanton geometry on the $SU(3)$ root lattice gives identical areas for all non-degenerate triangles, making the geometric $O(1)$ coefficient exactly $1$; (2) the generation direction necessarily has trivial Wilson line, rendering all three generations gauge-identical, as verified across all 77 MSSM-like models in the Mini-Landscape classification; (3) an extension to two-Wilson-line models, verified on the complete Parr-Vaudrevange-Wimmer classification of 3,337 $Z_3 \times Z_3$ MSSM models, confirms that no Wilson line configuration can break gauge blindness; (4) the K\"ahler metric is generation-universal by $\Delta(54)$ representation theory; (5) the full Froggatt-Nielsen chain computation with 534 trilinear superpotential couplings and vacuum-aligned singlet VEVs produces left-circulant Yukawa matrices whose eigenstructure is generation-universal. The Froggatt-Nielsen column texture is therefore not an approximation but an exact property of the leading-order string amplitude. Non-trivial $O(1)$ coefficients, which are required for CKM mixing angles beyond the Wolfenstein hierarchy, must originate from beyond-leading-order contributions: integrated-out heavy messenger propagators (tree-level in the low-energy effective theory), vacuum-alignment effects, multi-instanton corrections, or loop corrections.