Fermion mass hierarchy as a consequence of the spontaneous breakdown of the four-flavor symmetry

We study the fermion mass matrix in the case of four fermionic flavors u, d, c, and s. The original Lagrangian of the effective gauge theory respects the full four-flavor symmetry and fermions are massless. We analyze a vacuum expectation pattern of the elementary Higgs-field multiplet Phi/sub a/b [(a,b) = u,d,c,s]. Nonzero vacuum expectation values of Phi spontaneously break the original flavor symmetry with fermionic masses being directly proportional to these vacuum expectation values. In the Higgs potential, hard terms in Phi respect the global symmetry SU(4)/sub L/ x SU(4)/sub R/ of four flavors while soft terms in Psi break this symmetry down to the effective anomaly-free gauge group SU(2)/sub L//sup e/+μ x SU(2)/sub R//sup e/+μ. These soft terms are due to radiative as well as nonperturbative effects. Such a symmetry structure of the Higgs potential can be motivated by the underlying preonic dynamics. The desired solution, i.e., the proper interfamily and intrafamily hierarchy as well as the desired Cabibbo mixing angle, can emerge as a consequence of a subtle interplay between the soft terms and certain hard terms of the Higgs potential