Related papers: A Closer Look at the Elementary Fermions
Many models of Beyond the Standard Model physics involve heavy colored fermions. We study models where the new fermions have vector interactions and examine the connection between electroweak precision measurements and Higgs production. In…
A preon-based composite model of the fundamental fermions is discussed, in which the fermions are bound states of smaller entities -- primitive charges (preons). The preon is regarded as a dislocation in a dual 3-dimensional manifold -- a…
The fermion mass problem is briefly reviewed. The observed hierarchy of quark and charged lepton masses strongly suggests the existence of an approximately conserved chiral flavour symmetry beyond the Standard Model. It is argued that in…
The Standard Model has some intrinsic beauty in the sector of fermions and gauge bosons. Its scalar sector, though minimal, is however haunted by the hierarchy problem. The fermionic spectrum also have two major problems, the flavor problem…
A new non-universal abelian extension $\mathrm{G_{SM}}\otimes \mathrm{U(1)}_{X}$ to the Standard Model free from chiral anomalies is presented. The new $X$ charges distinguish among generations so as the fermion mass matrices get…
Neutrino oscillations present the only robust example of experimentally detected physics beyond the standard model. This review discusses the established and several hypothetical beyond standard models neutrino characteristics and their…
The flavor structure of quarks and leptons is not yet fully understood, but it hints a more fundamental theory of non-universal generations. We therefore propose a simple extension of the Standard Model by flipping (i.e., enlarging) the…
In spite of its many successes, the Standard Model makes many empirical assumptions in the Higgs and fermion sectors for which a deeper theoretical basis is sought. Starting from the usual gauge symmetry $u(1) \times su(2) \times su(3)$…
An optimal algebraic model of particle physics has a number of checkpoints to pass. As a minimum, models should $\langle 1 \rangle$ conform to the Coleman-Mandula theorem (or establish a loophole), $\langle 2 \rangle$ evade familiar fermion…
One of the most puzzling questions in particle physics concerns the status of the baryon (B) and lepton (L) quantum numbers. On the theoretical side, most new physics scenarios naturally lead to their non-conservation and some amount of…
Despite its great success in explaining the basic interactions of nature, the standard model suffers from an inability to explain the observed masses of the fundamental particles and the weak mixing angles between them. We shall survey a…
The search for a Dark Matter particle is the new grail and hard-sought nirvana of the particle physics community. From the theoretical side, it is the main challenge to provide a consistent and model-independent tool for comparing the…
The success of the Higgs mechanism in the standard model has led to the speculation that the standard model gauge group might arise through an analogous breaking of a yet more unified group. Such `grand unified theories' have the advantage…
We show that a recently discovered non-perturbative field-theoretical mechanism giving mass to elementary fermions, is also capable of generating a mass for the electro-weak bosons and can thus be used as a viable alternative to the Higgs…
All of the known fermions fit a simple formula which is presented here. The simple formula appears to indicate a topological origin to mass generation, and it is globally accurate to an approximate percent. Instantons or a quantized two…
Family symmetries are possibly the most conservative extension of the Standard Model that attempt explanations of the pattern of fermion masses and mixings. The observed large mixing angles in the lepton sector may be the first signal for…
The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics provides a very successful description of fundamental particles and their interactions but it is incomplete, as neutrino masses, dark matter and the baryon asymmetry of the Universe indicate. In…
Quarks and leptons, the fundamental building blocks of the subatomic world, manifest in three families - replicas with identical quantum numbers that differ only in their masses. After revisiting the key milestones that led to the discovery…
Mathematical models play an increasingly important role in the interpretation of biological experiments. Studies often present a model that generates the observations, connecting hypothesized process to an observed pattern. Such generative…
We discuss an anthropic explanation of why there exist three generations of fermions. If one assumes that the right-handed neutrino sector is responsible for both the matter-antimatter asymmetry and the dark matter, then anthropic selection…