Effects of Gauge Interactions on Fermion Masses in Models with Fermion Wavefunctions Separated in Higher Dimensions

Abstract

We consider models that generate hierarchies via the separation of fermion wavefunctions in higher-dimensional spaces. We calculate the effects of gauge interactions between fermions and show that these are important and could help to explain (i) why the heaviest known fermion is a charge 2/3 quark, rather than a charge -1/3 quark or a lepton, (ii) why this fermion has a mass $m_t$ comparable to the electroweak symmetry breaking scale $M_{ew}$, (iii) the patterns $m_t >> m_b > m_\tau$ and $m_c >> m_s > m_\mu$, and (iv) the smallness of neutrino masses.