Quark Lepton Mass Hierarchies and the Baryon Asymmetry

Abstract

The mass hierarchies of quarks and charged leptons as well as a large $\n_\m$-$\n_\t$ mixing angle are naturally explained by the Frogatt-Nielsen mechanism with a nonparallel family structure of chiral charges. We extend this mechanism to right-handed neutrinos. Their out-of-equilibrium decay generates a cosmological baryon asymmetry whose size is quantized in powers of the hierarchy parameter $\e^2$. For the simplest hierarchy pattern the neutrino mass $\bar{m}_\n= (m_{\n_\m}m_{\n_\t})^{1/2} \sim 10^{-2}$ eV, which is inferred from present indications for neutrino oscillations, implies a baryon asymmetry $n_B/s \sim 10^{-10}$. The corresponding baryogenesis temperature is $T_B \sim 10^{10}$ GeV.