The neutrino mixing matrix could (almost) be diagonal with entries {\pm}1

Abstract

It is consistent with the measurement of \theta_13 ~ 0.15 by Daya Bay to suppose that, in addition to being unitary, the neutrino mixing matrix is also almost hermitian, and thereby only a small perturbation from diag(+1,-1,-1) in a suitable basis. We suggest this possibility simply as an easily falsifiable ansatz that has not already been studied, as well as to offer a potentially useful means of organizing the experimental data. We explore the phenomenological implications of this ansatz and parametrize one type of deviation from the leading order relation |V_e3| \approx |V_\tau 1|. We also emphasize the group-invariant angle between orthogonal matrices as a means of comparing to data. The discussion is purely phenomenological, without any attempt to derive the condition V{\dag} \approx V from a fundamental theory.

Comments: 11 pages, 1 figure; added references; minor changes, errors corrected, to be published in PLB