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Flavor puzzle in three-Higgs-doublet models: Insights from Branco-Grimus-Lavoura and lessons from flavor data

Dipankar Das1,*, Miguel Levy2,†, and Anugrah M. Prasad1,‡

  • *Contact author: d.das@iiti.ac.in
  • †Contact author: miguelpissarra.levy@unibas.ch
  • ‡Contact author: anugrahmprasad@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 015020 – Published 21 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/hf9s-g762

Abstract

We study a variant of the three-Higgs-doublet model (3HDM), referred to as the Branco-Grimus-Lavoura–(BGL-)3HDM, incorporating a U(1)1×U(1)2 symmetry, which can distinguish the primary sources of mass for different fermion generations. In the version considered here, the Yukawa matrices in the down-quark and charged lepton sectors are diagonal, thereby eliminating tree-level flavor changing neutral currents (FCNCs) in these sectors. FCNC interactions mediated by neutral nonstandard Higgses are confined to the up-quark sector only. No new Beyond-Standard-Model parameters are introduced by the Yukawa sector of the model, making it as economical as the natural flavor conservation (NFC) versions of 3HDM with a U(1)1×U(1)2 symmetry in terms of the number of free parameters. However, even in the down-quark and in the charged lepton sectors, flavor diagonal but nonuniversal Higgs couplings set this model apart from the NFC versions of the 3HDM.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 015020– Published 21 July, 2025
  • Received 17 March 2025
  • Accepted 18 June 2025
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