Observable parameters of fermion mass matrices in multi-Higgs-doublet models

It is shown that, although the fermionic and scalar sectors of multi-Higgs-doublet models are not independent of each other, the fermion mass matrices, in particular, are invariant under the equivalence class transformations of the scalar doublets. In light of this observation, a method originally formulated for counting the observable parameters of the Yukawa Lagrangian of the standard model is extended to count the observable parameters of the fermion mass matrices in multi-Higgs-doublet models. (author)