Minimal flavor violation in the lepton sector

We extend the notion of minimal flavor violation to the lepton sector. We introduce a symmetry principle which allows us to express lepton flavor violation in the charged lepton sector in terms of neutrino masses and mixing angles. We explore the dependence of the rates for flavor changing radiative charged lepton decays (l(i) -> l(j)gamma) and mu-to-e conversion in nuclei on the scales for total lepton number violation, lepton flavor violation and the neutrino masses and mixing angles. Measurable rates are obtained when the scale for total lepton number violation is much larger than the scale for lepton flavor violation. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.