General considerations on lepton mass matrices

Abstract

We classify the flavour groups and representations providing, in the symmetric limit, an approximate description of lepton masses and mixings. We assume that the light neutrinos are of Majorana type and that the flavour symmetry directly constrains their mass matrix. The representations can be characterised by the dimension, type (real, pseudoreal, complex), and equivalence of its irreducible components, and in terms of such a classification we find only six viable cases. It turns out that the neutrinos are always either anarchical or have an inverted hierarchical spectrum. Therefore, if the hint of a normal hierarchical spectrum were confirmed, we would conclude (under the above assumption) that symmetry breaking effects must play a primary role in the understanding of neutrino flavour observables.