Tri-bimaximal Mixing from Cascades

We study fermion mass matrices of the cascade form which are compatible with the tri-bimaximal lepton mixing and generation mass hierarchy. The flat-cascade lepton matrices imply a parameter-independent relation among the mixing angles and mass eigenvalues. The relation has several indications that the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle is close to maximal and the other two angles have a correlation independently of neutrino mass eigenvalues. We also discuss phenomenological aspects of the cascade matrices; flavor-violating rare decays of charged leptons, thermal leptogenesis, and leptonic CP violation. Possible dynamical origins of the cascades are illustrated based on flavor symmetry and in higher-dimensional theory.