Flavor Symmetry and Neutrino Oscillations

Abstract

We show how the nearly bi-maximal mixing scenario comes out naturally from gauged $SO(3{)}_F$ flavor symmetry via spontaneous symmetry breaking. An interesting relation between the neutrino mass-squared differences and the mixing angle, i.e., $\Delta m_{\mu e}^2/\Delta m_{\tau \mu }^2\simeq 2|U_{e3}{|}^2$ is obtained. The smallness of the ratio (or $|U_{e3}|$) can also naturally be understood from an approximate permutation symmetry. Once the mixing element $|U_{e3}|$ is determined, such a relation will tell us which solution will be favored within this model. The model can also lead to interesting phenomena on lepton-flavor violations.

Comments: 3 pages, using macro ws-p10x7.cls. Talk given at 30th International Conference on High-Energy Physics (ICHEP 2000), 27 Jul - 2 Aug 2000, Osaka, Japan