Stitching the Yukawa Quilt

Abstract

We develop a systematic analysis of quark mass matrices which, starting with the measured values of quark masses and mixing angles, allows for a model independent search for all possible (symmetric or hermitian) mass matrices having texture zeroes at the unification scale. A survey of all six and five texture zero structures yields a total of five possible solutions which may be distinguished by improved measurements of the CKM matrix elements and which may readily be extended to include lepton masses with the Georgi-Jarlskog texture. The solutions naturally suggest a parameterisation for the mass matrices based on a perturbative expansion and we present some speculations concerning the origin of such structure.