Neutrino Democracy, Fermion Mass Hierarchies And Proton Decay From 5D SU(5)

The explanation of various observed phenomena such as large angle neutrino oscillations, hierarchies of charged fermion masses and CKM mixings, and apparent baryon number conservation may have a common origin. We show how this could occur in 5D SUSY SU(5) supplemented by a ${\cal U}(1)$ flavor symmetry and additional matter supermultiplets called 'copies'. In addition, the proton decays into $p\to K\nu $, with an estimated lifetime of order $10^{33}-10^{36}$ yrs. Other decay channels include $Ke$ and $K\mu $ with comparable rates. We also expect that BR$(\mu \to e\gamma)\sim $BR$(\tau \to \mu \gamma)$.