Fermion mass hierarchy and electric dipole moments

We show that in supersymmetric models with a gauged flavor symmetry explaining the hierarchy of fermion masses and mixings, the electron, muon, neutron and the deuteron acquire sizable electric dipole moments (EDM) through loop diagrams involving the flavor gaugino/gauge boson near the Planck scale. These EDMs are proportional to the phases in the fermion Yukawa couplings and are typically much larger than the neutrino seesaw induced EDM for the leptons. In a popular class of models based on anomalous U(I) flavor symmetry of string origin, we find d(e) similar to (10(-26)-10(-27)) e cm, d(mu) similar to (10(-24)-10(-26)) e cm, d(n) similar to 10(-27) e cm, and d(D) similar to (10(-26)-10(-27)) e cm, which are within reach of next generation experiments. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.