Trinification phenomenology and the structure of Higgs bosons

The extension of the Standard Model to SU(3)L × SU(3)R × SU(3)C (the trinification group) augmented by the SO(3)G flavor group is considered. In our phenomenological treatment partly known and partly proposed vacuum expectation values of the scalar Higgs fields play a dominant role. All Higgs fields are taken to be flavor singlets, all flavon fields trinification singlets. We need two flavor (generation) matrices. One determines the mass hierarchy of all fermions, the second one is responsible for all mixings including the CP-violating phase in the CKM matrix. The mixing with higher states contained in the group representation provides for an understanding of the difference between the up quark and the down quark spectrum. There is a close connection between charged and neutral fermions. An inverted neutrino hierarchy is predicted. Examples for the tree-level potential of the Higgs fields are given. To obtain an acceptable spectrum of scalar states, the construction of the potential requires the combination of matrix fields that differ with respect to fermion couplings and flavor-changing properties. As a consequence bosons with fermiophobic components or, alternatively, flavor-changing components are predicted in this model. Nevertheless, the Higgs boson at 125 GeV is very little different from the Standard Model Higgs boson in its couplings to fermions but may have self-coupling constants larger by a factor 2.