Dark origin of the quark flavor hierarchy and mixing

We provide a dynamical mechanism for the generation of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix in the context of a recently proposed model of flavor. The framework, based on the paradigm that Yukawa couplings are effective low energy couplings generated radiatively by dark sector interactions, is here extended to include a new scalar field which plays the role of a dark flavon. Being singlet under the Standard Model gauge group but charged under the U(1) symmetry of the dark sector, this particle sources new two- A nd three-loop diagrams that result in off-diagonal Yukawa interactions, thereby providing a simple explanation for the observed structure of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix. By using an effective parametrization of these new loop contributions, we show that the CKM matrix elements can be correctly reproduced for perturbative values of the involved couplings. New implications for dark matter phenomenology are briefly outlined.