A4 models of tri-bimaximal-reactor mixing

Abstract

Recent results from T2K, MINOS and Double CHOOZ all indicate a sizeable reactor angle theta_13 which would rule out conventional tri-bimaximal lepton mixing. However, it is possible to maintain the tri-bimaximal solar and atmospheric mixing angle predictions, theta_12 ~ 35 degrees, theta_23 ~ 45 degrees even for a quite sizeable reactor angle theta_13 ~ 8 degrees, using an ansatz called tri-bimaximal-reactor (TBR) mixing proposed by one of us some time ago. We propose an explicit A4 model of leptons based on the type I seesaw mechanism at both the effective and the renormalisable level which, together with vacuum alignment, leads to surprisingly accurate TBR neutrino mixing, with the second order corrections to mixing angles having small coefficients.