Plato's Fire and the Neutrino Mass Matrix

Abstract

With the accumulation of many years of solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillation data, the approximate form of the 3 X 3 neutrino mixing matrix is now known. The theoretical challenge is to understand where this mixing matrix comes from. Recently, a remarkable fact was discovered that for a specific pattern of the neutrino mass matrix at a high scale, any flavor-changing radiative correction will automatically lead to the desired mixing matrix. It was also discovered that the required specific pattern at the high scale can be maintained by the non-Abelian discrete symmetry A_4 which is also the symmetry group of the regular tetrahedron, one of five perfect geometric solids known to Plato who associated it with the element ``fire''. I discuss this recent development and add to it a new and very simple mechanism for the implementation of the flavor-changing radiative correction.