Abstract
We investigate the physical meaning of some of the texture zeros which appear in most of the ansatzes on leptonic masses and their mixing. It is shown that starting from arbitrary lepton mass matrices and making suitable weak basis transformations one can obtain some of these sets of zeros, which therefore have no physical content. We then analyse four-zero texture ansatzes where the charged lepton and neutrino mass matrices have the same structure. The four texture zeros cannot be obtained simultaneously through weak basis transformations, so these ansatzes do have physical content. We show that they can be separated into four classes and study the physical implications of each class.
Highlights
The discovery of neutrino oscillations pointing towards the existence of nonvanishing neutrino masses and large leptonic mixing has rendered the flavour puzzle even more intriguing
A difficulty one encounters in an attempt at making a systematic study of experimentally viable texture zeros results from the fact that some sets of these zeros have, by themselves, no physical meaning, since they can be obtained starting from arbitrary fermion mass matrices, by making appropriate weak basis (WB) transformations which leave the gauge currents flavour diagonal [4]
In this paper we investigate in detail what are the texture zeros which can be obtained in the leptonic sector with Majorana neutrinos through WB transformations
Summary
The discovery of neutrino oscillations pointing towards the existence of nonvanishing neutrino masses and large leptonic mixing has rendered the flavour puzzle even more intriguing. We analyse the physical implications of Ansatze where the charged lepton mass matrix ml and the effective Majorana neutrino mass matrix mν have the same structure (we denote them “parallel Ansatze”), with a total of four independent zeros. These Ansatze do have physical meaning, since not all their texture zeros can be simultaneously obtained through WB transformations. We show that starting from arbitrary structures for the leptonic mass matrices it is possible to obtain, through WB transformations, ml Hermitian with a texture zero in the (1, 1) position while mν (which is symmetric due to its assumed Majorana nature) has zeros in the (1, 1) and (1, 3) entries.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
