English

Is the Unitarity Triangle Right?

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-04-21 v1

Abstract

The latest fits to the CKM matrix indicate that alpha=(90.7+4.5-2.9) degrees. The proximity of alpha to a right-angle raises the question: is it merely accidental or is it due to some physics beyond the Standard Model? In the framework of our recently-proposed flavour permutation symmetry, we consider the similarities between the quark and lepton mixing matrices, V and U, arguing that the relative smallness of one element in each suggests common constraints. These constraints link the smallness of V_ub and U_e3 with each other, and with the approximate mu-tau symmetry observed in leptonic mixing, together with a prediction of a large Dirac CP phase in both the quark and lepton sectors. In the quark case, we predict alpha=(89.0\pm 0.2) degrees, in agreement with data and suggesting that the unitarity triangle is in fact very nearly, but not exactly right.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0904.3014,
  title  = {Is the Unitarity Triangle Right?},
  author = {P. F. Harrison and D. R. J. Roythorne and W. G. Scott},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0904.3014},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Talk given at the International Conference on Particles And Nuclei (PANIC08), Eilat, Israel, 13th November 2008. 4 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:53:08.118Z