FLAVOR FROM STRONGLY COUPLED SUPERSYMMETRY

Strongly coupled supersymmetric theories can give rise to composite qu arks and leptons at low energy. We show that the internal structure of these particles can explain the origin of three generations and provi de a qualitative understanding of mass ratios and mixing angles betwee n the different flavors of fermions, all within a renormalizable theor y. The main point of the paper is to show how fermion masses and mixin g angles can result from a ''dual'' Frogatt-Nielsen mechanism: fields neutral under SU(3)XSU(2)XU(1) that carry flavor quantum numbers are c onfined within quarks and leptons, and from their perturbative interac tions arises the observed flavor structure. [S0556-2821(97)05321-6].