Systematic Study of Horizontal Gauge Theories

We analyze all the possible continuous horizontal gauge groups G_H in relation with their possibility to explain m_b<<m_t. We assume that the only effective fermionic degrees of freedom correspond to the known fermions but allow the possibility of adding a right handed neutrino to each family. We assume that the Higgs fields which generate masses for these fermions, trough renormalizable Yukawa couplings, transform as an irreducible representation of SU(3)_c\otimesSU(2)_L\otimesU(1)_Y\otimesG_H. Under these assumptions we find two U(1)_H or U(1)_{H1}\otimesU(1)_{H2} models free of anomalies and able to guarantee that only the top has a renormalizable mass-generating Yukawa coupling.