Tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing from discrete subgroups of SU(3) and SO(3) family symmetry

It has recently been shown how tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing can be achieved, using the see-saw mechanism with constrained sequential dominance, through the vacuum alignment of a broken non-Abelian gauged family symmetry such as SO(3) or SU(3). Generalising the approach of Altarelli and Feruglio developed for an $A_4$ model we show how the reduction of the underlying symmetry to a discrete subgroup of SO(3) or SU(3) renders this alignment a generic property of such models. This means near tri-bimaximal mixing can be quite naturally accommodated in a complete unified theory of quark and lepton masses.