The framed standard model (FSM) is obtained from the standard model by incorporating, as field variables, the frame vectors (vielbeins) in internal symmetry space. It gives the standard Higgs boson and 3 generations of quarks and leptons as immediate consequences. It gives moreover a fermion mass matrix of the form: m = m T αα † , where α is a vector in generation space independent of the fermion species and rotating with changing scale, which has already been shown to lead, generically, to up-down mixing, neutrino oscillations and mass hierarchy. In this paper, pushing the FSM further, one first derives to 1-loop order the RGE for the rotation of α, and then applies it to fit mass and mixing data as a first test of the model. With 7 real adjustable parameters, 18 measured quantities are fitted, most (12) to within experimental error or to better than 0.5 percent, and the rest (6) not far off. (A summary of this fit can be found in Table 2 in the text.) Two notable features, both generic to FSM, not just specific to the fit, are: (i) that a theta-angle of order unity in the instanton term 1 in QCD would translate via rotation into a Kobayashi-Maskawa phase in the CKM matrix of about the observed magnitude (J ∼ 10 −5 ), (ii) that it would come out correctly that m u < m d , despite the fact that m t m b , m c m s . Of the 18 quantities fitted, 12 are deemed independent in the usual formulation of the standard model. In fact, the fit gives a total of 17 independent parameters of the standard model, but 5 of these have not been measured by experiment. 2 while su(2) is already known to represent up-down flavour [6] andũ(1) is B − L [7].

A Dualized Standard Model recently proposed affords a natural explanation for the existence of Higgs fields and of exactly 3 generations of fermions, while giving at the same time the observed fermion mass hierarchy together with a tree-level CKM matrix equal to the identity matrix. It further suggests a method for generating from loop corrections the lower generation masses and nondiagonal CKM matrix elements. In this paper, the proposed calculation is carried out to 1-loop. It is found first that with the method suggested one can account readily for the masses of the second generation fermions as a 'leakage' from the highest generation. Then, with the Yukawa couplings fixed by fitting the masses of the 2 higher generations, one is left with only 2 free parameters to evaluate the CKM matrix and the masses in the lowest generation. One obtains a very good fit to the CKM matrix and sensible values for the masses of d and e, though, for a valid reason, not of u. In addition, the fitted values of the Yukawa couplings and vacuum expectation values of the dual colour Higgs fields show remarkable features perhaps indicative of a deeper significance.

The successful explanation of fermion mixing and of the fermion mass hierarchy by the Dualized Standard Model (DSM) scheme is based on the premises of a fermion mass matrix rotating in generation space with changing scales at a certain speed, which could in principle lead to sizeable flavour-violation observable in high sensitivity experiments such as BaBar. However, a full perturbative calculation to 1-loop order reported here shows that this kinematical, flavourviolating effect of a rotating mass matrix is off-set in the DSM by parallel effects from rotating wave functions and vertices giving in the end only very small flavour-violations which are unlikely to be detectable by present experiments. The result means that at least for the present the DSM scheme has survived yet another threat to its validity, which is indeed its most stringent and dangerous to-date. It also provides some clarification of certain concepts connected with the rotating mass matrix which had previously been found puzzling.

In this letter we present an operator formalism for Closed String Field Theory based on closed half-strings. Our results indicate that the restricted polyhedra of the classical non-polynomial string field theory, can be represented as traces of infinite matrices, with operator insertions that reparametrise the half-strings.

The Dualized Standard Model offers a raison d'être for 3 fermion generations and an explanation for their distinctive mass and mixing patterns, reproducing to a reasonable accuracy the empirical mixing matrix and mass spectrum for both quarks and leptons in terms of just a few parameters.