A New Paradigm for the Fermion Generations

Abstract

A new mechanism is proposed to explain the appearance of the three known fermion generations in a natural way. The underlying idea is based on the discreteness of the spectrum of solutions of the gap equation appearing in models of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. Within such a framework, the number of parameters needed to describe the experimentally observed fermion spectrum is drastically reduced. The phenomenological consequences of such a mechanism are carefully discussed, in order to explore its viability.

Comments: 36 pages, LaTeX, minor typographical corrections and explanatory remarks added, version published in Helvetica Physica Acta, 67, No. 6 (October 1994)