An SU(3) symmetry for light neutrinos

Abstract

It is proposed that light neutrinos form a triplet in a global SU(3) symmetry in the mass eigenstate basis. Assuming that the SU(3) symmetry is broken in the direction $(-a\lambda_{3}+\frac{b}{\sqrt{3}}\lambda_{8})$ , and after going to the flavor basis, we predict the atmospheric mixing angles sin2θ23=0.5 and sinθ13=0, if νμ–ντ symmetry is assumed. In the flavor basis, the diagonal part of the matrix coefficient of b (the dominant part) is found to transform like $(\lambda_{3}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\lambda_{8})$ . Imposing the same condition on the matrix coefficient of a fixes the solar mixing angle, $\sin^{2}\theta_{12}= \frac{1}{3}$ . The implications for neutrinoless double beta decay are discussed.