Flavor mixing democracy and minimal CP violation

We point out that there is a unique parametrization of quark flavor mixing in which every angle is close to the Cabibbo angle θC≃13° with the CP-violating phase ϕq around 1°, implying that they might all be related to the strong hierarchy among quark masses. Applying the same parametrization to lepton flavor mixing, we find that all three mixing angles are comparably large (around π/4) and the Dirac CP-violating phase ϕl is also minimal as compared with its values in the other eight possible parametrizations. In this spirit, we propose a simple neutrino mixing ansatz which is equivalent to the tri-bimaximal flavor mixing pattern in the ϕl→0 limit and predicts sinθ13=1/2sin(ϕl/2) for reactor antineutrino oscillations. Hence the Jarlskog invariant of leptonic CP violation Jl=(sinϕl)/12 can reach a few percent if θ13 lies in the range 7°⩽θ13⩽10°.