Spontaneous CP violation and non-Abelian family symmetry in SUSY

We analyse the properties of generic models based on an SU(3) family symmetry providing a full description of quark charged lepton and neutrino masses and mixing angles. We show that a precise fit of the resulting fermion textures is consistent with CP being spontaneously broken in the flavour sector. The CP violating phases are determined by the scalar potential and we discuss how symmetries readily lead to a maximal phase controlling CP violation in the quark sector. In a specific model the CP violation to be expected in the neutrino sector is related to that in the quark sector and we determine this relation for two viable models. In addition to giving rise to the observed structure of quark and lepton masses this class of model solves both the CP and flavour problems normally associated with supersymmetric models. The flavour structure of the soft supersymmetry breaking terms is controlled by the family symmetry and we analyse some of the related phenomenological implications. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.