Why three generations?

We discuss an anthropic explanation of why there exist three generations of fermions. If one assumes that the right-handed neutrino sector is responsible for both the matter–antimatter asymmetry and the dark matter, then anthropic selection favors three or more families of fermions. For successful leptogenesis, at least two right-handed neutrinos are needed, while the third right-handed neutrino is invoked to play the role of dark matter. The number of the right-handed neutrinos is tied to the number of generations by the anomaly constraints of the U(1)B−L gauge symmetry. Combining anthropic arguments with observational constraints, we obtain predictions for the X-ray observations, as well as for neutrinoless double-beta decay.