Neutrino Masses and Mixing, Quark-lepton Symmetry and Strong Right-handed Neutrino Hierarchy

Assuming the same form of all mass matrices as motivated by quark-lepton symmetry, we discuss conditions under which bi-large mixing in the lepton sector can be obtained with a minimal amount of fine tuning requirements for possible models. We assume hierarchical mass matrices, dominated by the 3-3 element, with off-diagonal elements much smaller than the larger neighboring diagonal element. Characteristic features of this scenario are strong hierarchy in masses of right-handed neutrinos, and comparable contributions of both lighter right-handed neutrinos to the resulting left-handed neutrino Majorana mass matrix. Due to obvious quark lepton symmetry, this approach can be embedded into grand unified theories. The mass of the lightest neutrino does not depend on details of a model in the leading order. The right-handed neutrino scale can be identified with the GUT scale in which case the mass of the lightest neutrino is given as (m_{top}^2/M_{GUT}) |U_{\tau 1}|^2.