TEXTURE ZEROS FOR DIRAC NEUTRINOS AND CURRENT EXPERIMENTAL TESTS

Abstract

The Daya Bay and RENO reactor neutrino experiments have revealed that the smallest neutrino mixing angle is in fact relatively large, i.e. θ13 ≈9°. Motivated by this exciting progress, we perform a systematic study of the neutrino mass matrix Mν with one or two texture zeros, in the assumption that neutrinos are Dirac particles. Among 15 possible patterns with two texture zeros, only three turn out to be favored by current neutrino oscillation data at the 3σ level. Although all the six patterns with one texture zero are compatible with the experimental data at the 3σ level, the parameter space of each pattern is strictly constrained. Phenomenological implications of Mν on the leptonic CP violation and neutrino mass spectrum are explored, and the stability of texture zeros against the radiative corrections is also discussed.