Mechanism Of Neutrino Mass Generation Research Articles

Naturalness and lepton number/flavor violation in inverse seesaw models

We introduce three right-handed neutrinos and three sterile neutrinos, and consider an inverse seesaw mechanism for neutrino mass generation. From naturalness point of view, their Majorana masses should be small, while it induces a large neutrino Yukawa coupling. Then, a neutrinoless double beta decay rate can be enhanced, and a sizable Higgs mass correction is inevitable. We find that the enhancement rate can be more than ten times compared with a standard prediction from light neutrino contribution alone, and an analytic form of heavy neutrino contributions to the Higgs mass correction. In addition, we numerically analyze the model, and find almost all parameter space of the model can be complementarily searched by future experiments of neutrinoless double beta decay and $\mu \to e$ conversion.

Testing neutrino mass generation mechanisms from the lepton flavor violating decay of the Higgs boson

We investigate how observations of the lepton flavor violating decay of the Higgs boson ($h \to \ell\ell^\prime$) can narrow down models of neutrino mass generation mechanisms, which were systematically studied in Refs. [1,2] by focusing on the combination of new Yukawa coupling matrices with leptons. We find that a wide class of models for neutrino masses can be excluded if evidence for $h \to \ell\ell^\prime$ is really obtained in the current or future collider experiments. In particular, simple models of Majorana neutrino masses cannot be compatible with the observation of $h \to \ell\ell^\prime$. It is also found that some of the simple models to generate masses of Dirac neutrinos radiatively can be compatible with a significant rate of the $h \to \ell\ell^\prime$ process.

Small neutrino masses from gravitationalθ-term

We present how a neutrino condensate and small neutrino masses emerge from a topological formulation of gravitational anomaly. We first recapitulate how a gravitational $\theta$-term leads to the emergence of a new bound neutrino state analogous to the $\eta'$ meson of QCD. Then we show the consequent formation of a neutrino vacuum condensate, which effectively generates small neutrino masses. Afterwards we outline several phenomenological consequences of our neutrino mass generation model. The cosmological neutrino mass bound vanishes since we predict the neutrinos to be massless until the phase transition in the late Universe, $T\sim {\rm meV}$. Deviations from an equal flavor rate due to enhanced neutrino decays in extraterrestrial neutrino fluxes can be observed in future IceCube data. The current cosmological neutrino background only consists of the lightest neutrinos, which, due to enhanced neutrino-neutrino interactions, either bind up, form a superfluid, or completely annihilate into massless bosons. Strongly coupled relic neutrinos could provide a contribution to cold dark matter in the late Universe, together with the new proposed particles and topological defects, which may have formed during neutrino condensation. These enhanced interactions could also be a source of relic neutrino clustering in our Galaxy, which possibly makes the overdense cosmic neutrino background detectable in the KATRIN experiment. The neutrino condensate provides a mass for the hypothetical $B-L$ gauge boson, leading to a gravity-competing force detectable in short-distance measurements. Gravitational waves detections have the potential to probe our neutrino mass generation mechanism.

Theory prospective on leptonic CP violation

The phenomenology of 3-neutrino mixing, the current status of our knowledge about the 3-neutrino mixing parameters, including the absolute neutrino mass scale, and of the Dirac and Majorana CP violation in the lepton sector are reviewed. The problems of CP violation in neutrino oscillations and of determining the nature – Dirac or Majorana – of massive neutrinos are discussed. The seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation and the related leptogenesis scenario of generation of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe are considered. The results showing that the CP violation necessary for the generation of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe in leptogenesis can be due exclusively to the Dirac and/or Majorana CP-violating phase(s) in the neutrino mixing matrix U are briefly reviewed. The discrete symmetry approach to understanding the observed pattern of neutrino mixing and the related predictions for the leptonic Dirac CP violation are also reviewed.

Electroweak vacuum stability and the seesaw mechanism revisited

We study the electroweak vacuum stability in Type I seesaw models for 3 generations of neutrinos in scenarios where the right-handed neutrinos have explicit bare mass terms in the Lagrangian and where these are dynamically generated through the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking. To best highlight the difference of the two cases we concentrate on the absolute stability of the scalar potential. We observe that for the first scenario, the scale at which the scalar potential becomes unstable is lower from that within the Standard Model. In addition the Yukawa couplings $\mathbf{Y}_\nu$ are constrained such that $\Tr{[\mathbf{Y}^{\dagger}_\nu \mathbf{Y}_{\nu}}] \lesssim10^{-3}$. In the second scenario the electroweak stability can be improved in a large region of parameter space. However, we found that the scalar used to break the lepton number symmetry cannot be too light and have a large coupling to right-handed neutrinos in order for the seesaw mechanism to be a valid mechanism for neutrino mass generation. In this case we have $\Tr [\mathbf{Y}^\dagger_{\nu} \mathbf{Y}_\nu]\lesssim 0.01$.

Impact of sterile neutrinos on nuclear-assisted cLFV processes

We discuss charged lepton flavour violating processes occurring in the presence of muonic atoms, such as muon-electron conversion in nuclei $\text{CR}(\mu -e, \text{ N})$, the (Coulomb enhanced) decay of muonic atoms into a pair of electrons BR($\mu^- e^- \to e^- e^-$, N), as well as Muonium conversion and decay, $\text{Mu}-\bar{\text{Mu}}$ and $\text{Mu}\to e^+ e^-$. Any experimental signal of these observables calls for scenarios of physics beyond the Standard Model. In this work, we consider minimal extensions of the Standard Model via the addition of sterile fermions, providing the corresponding complete analytical expressions for all the considered observables. We first consider an "ad hoc" extension with a single sterile fermion state, and investigate its impact on the above observables. Two well motivated mechanisms of neutrino mass generation are then considered: the Inverse Seesaw embedded into the Standard Model, and the $\nu$MSM. Our study reveals that, depending on their mass range and on the active-sterile mixing angles, sterile neutrinos can give significant contributions to the above mentioned observables, some of them even lying within present and future sensitivity of dedicated cLFV experiments. We complete the analysis by confronting our results to other (direct and indirect) searches for sterile fermions.

A new radiative neutrino mass generation mechanism with higher dimensional scalar representations and custodial symmetry

A new realization for radiative neutrino mass generation is presented. Based on the requirement of tree-level custodial symmetry and the introduction of higher (greater than two) dimensional representations for scalar fields, a specific scenario with a scalar septet is presented that generates neutrino Majorana masses radiatively. This is accomplished through an eleven dimensional operator that requires the addition of several scalar fields and a SU(2) 5-plet of new fermions, together with a Z2 that guarantees the preservation of custodial symmetry. The phenomenology of the setup is rather rich and includes a dark matter candidate

Scalar dark matter in the B−L model

The U(1)B−L extension of the Standard Model requires the existence of right-handed neutrinos and naturally realizes the seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation. We study the possibility of explaining the dark matter in this model with an additional scalar field, ϕDM, that is a singlet of the Standard Model but charged under U(1)B−L. An advantage of this scenario is that the stability of ϕDM can be guaranteed by appropriately choosing its B−L charge, without the need of an extra ad hoc discrete symmetry. We investigate in detail the dark matter phenomenology of this model. We show that the observed dark matter density can be obtained via gauge or scalar interactions, and that semi-annihilations could play an important role in the latter case. The regions consistent with the dark matter density are determined in each instance and the prospects for detection in future experiments are analyzed. If dark matter annihilations are controlled by the B−L gauge interaction, the mass of the dark matter particle should lie below 5 TeV and its direct detection cross section can be easily probed by XENON1T; if instead they are controlled by scalar interactions, the dark matter mass can be much larger and the detection prospects are less certain. Finally, we show that this scenario can be readily extended to accommodate multiple dark matter particles.

Lepton mixing from the hidden sector

Experimental results indicate a possible relation between the lepton and quark mixing matrices of the form U_PMNS \approx V_CKM^\dagger U_X, where U_X is a matrix with special structure related to the mechanism of neutrino mass generation. We propose a framework which can realize such a relation. The main ingredients of the framework are the double seesaw mechanism, SO(10) Grand Unification and a hidden sector of theory. The latter is composed of singlets (fermions and bosons) of the GUT symmetry with masses between the GUT and Planck scale. The interactions in this sector obey certain symmetries G_hidden. We explore the conditions under which symmetries G_hidden can produce flavour structures in the visible sector. Here the key elements are the basis-fixing symmetry and mediators which communicate information about properties of the hidden sector to the visible one. The interplay of SO(10) symmetry, basis-fixing symmetry identified as Z2 x Z2 and G_hidden can lead to the required form of U_X. A different kind of new physics is responsible for generation of the CKM mixing. We present the simplest realizations of the framework which differ by nature of the mediators and by symmetries of the hidden sector.

Non standard neutrino interactions: current status and future prospects

Neutrino oscillations have become well-known phenomena; the measurements of neutrino mixing angles and mass squared differences are continuously improving. Future oscillation experiments will eventually determine the remaining unknown neutrino parameters, namely, the mass ordering, normal or inverted, and the CP-violating phase. On the other hand, the absolute mass scale of neutrinos could be probed by cosmological observations, single beta decay as well as by neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. Furthermore, the last one may shed light on the nature of neutrinos, Dirac or Majorana, by measuring the effective Majorana mass of neutrinos. However, the neutrino mass generation mechanism remains unknown. A well-motivated phenomenological approach to search for new physics, in the neutrino sector, is that of non-standard interactions. In this short review, the current constraints in this picture, as well as the perspectives from future experiments, are discussed.

Addendum to “Leptogenesis in an SU(5)×A5 golden ratio flavour model” [Nucl. Phys. B 896 (2015) 311–329

We derive and discuss the solution of the Boltzmann equations for leptogenesis in a phenomenologically viable SU(5)×A5 golden ratio flavour model proposed in [1,2]. The model employs, in particular, the seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation. We find that the results on the baryon asymmetry of the Universe, obtained earlier in [2] using approximate analytic expressions for the relevant CP violating asymmetry and efficiency factors, are correct, as was expected, up to 20–30%. The phenomenological predictions for the low energy neutrino observables, derived using values of the parameters of the model for which we reproduce the observed value of the baryon asymmetry, change little with respect to those presented in [2]. Among the many predictions of the model we find, for instance, that the neutrinoless double beta decay effective Majorana mass mee lies between 3.3 meV and 14.3 meV.

Axion like particles and the inverse seesaw mechanism

Light pseudoscalars known as axion like particles (ALPs) may be behind physical phenomena like the Universe transparency to ultra-energetic photons, the soft $\gamma$-ray excess from the Coma cluster, and the 3.5 keV line. We explore the connection of these particles with the inverse seesaw (ISS) mechanism for neutrino mass generation. We propose a very restrictive setting where the scalar field hosting the ALP is also responsible for generating the ISS mass scales through its vacuum expectation value on gravity induced nonrenormalizable operators. A discrete gauge symmetry protects the theory from the appearance of overly strong gravitational effects and discrete anomaly cancellation imposes strong constraints on the order of the group. The anomalous U$(1)$ symmetry leading to the ALP is an extended lepton number and the protective discrete symmetry can be always chosen as a subgroup of a combination of the lepton number and the baryon number.

Seesaw models with minimal flavor violation

We explore realizations of minimal flavor violation (MFV) for leptons in the simplest seesaw models where the neutrino mass generation mechanism is driven by new fermion singlets (type I) or triplets (type III) and by a scalar triplet (type II). We also discuss similarities and differences of the MFV implementation among the three scenarios. To study the phenomenological implications, we consider a number of effective dimension-six operators that are purely leptonic or couple leptons to the standard model gauge and Higgs bosons and evaluate constraints on the scale of MFV associated with these operators from the latest experimental information. Specifically, we employ the most recent measurements of neutrino mixing parameters as well as the currently available data on flavor-violating radiative and three-body decays of charged leptons, $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}e$ conversion in nuclei, the anomalous magnetic moments of charged leptons, and their electric dipole moments. The most stringent lower limit on the MFV scale comes from the present experimental bound on $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}e\ensuremath{\gamma}$ and can reach 500 TeV or higher, depending on the details of the seesaw scheme. With our numerical results, we illustrate some important differences among the seesaw types. In particular, we show that in types I and III there are features which can bring about potentially remarkable effects which do not occur in type II. In addition, we comment on how one of the new effective operators can induce flavor-changing dilepton decays of the Higgs boson, which may be probed in upcoming searches at the LHC.

Lepton-flavored scalar dark matter with minimal flavor violation

We explore scalar dark matter that is part of a lepton flavor triplet satisfying symmetry requirements under the hypothesis of minimal flavor violation. Beyond the standard model, the theory contains in addition three right-handed neutrinos that participate in the seesaw mechanism for light neutrino mass generation. The dark-matter candidate couples to standard-model particles via Higgs-portal renormalizable interactions as well as to leptons through dimension-six operators, all of which have minimal flavor violation built-in. We consider restrictions on the new scalars from the Higgs boson measurements, observed relic density, dark-matter direct detection experiments, LEP II measurements on e+e- scattering into a photon plus missing energy, and searches for flavor-violating lepton decays. The viable parameter space can be tested further with future data. Also, we investigate the possibility of the new scalars' couplings accounting for the tentative hint of Higgs flavor-violating decay h -> mu tau recently detected in the CMS experiment. They are allowed by constraints from other Higgs data to produce a rate of this decay roughly compatible with the CMS finding.

Dark matter candidate in an extended type III seesaw scenario

The type III seesaw mechanism for neutrino mass generation usually makes use of at least two $Y = 0$, $SU(2)_L$ lepton triplets. We augment such a model with a third triplet and a sterile neutrino, both of which are odd under a conserved $\Z_2$ symmetry. With all new physics confined to the $\Z_2$-odd sector, whose low energy manifestation is in some higher-dimensional operators, a fermionic dark matter candidate is found to emerge. We identify the region of the parameter space of the scenario, which is consistent with all constraints from relic density and direct searches, and allows a wide range of masses for the dark matter candidate.

Warm dark matter in aB−Linverse seesaw scenario

We show that a standard model gauge singlet fermion field, with mass of order keV or larger, and involved in the inverse seesaw mechanism of light neutrino mass generation, can be a good warm dark matter candidate. Our framework is based on B-L extension of the Standard Model. The construction ensures the absence of any mixing between active neutrinos and the aforementioned dark matter field. This circumvents the usual constraints on the mass of warm dark matter imposed by X-ray observations. We show that over-abundance of thermally produced warm dark matter (which nevertheless do not reach chemical equilibrium) can be reduced to an acceptable range in the presence of a moduli field decaying into radiation --- though only when the reheat temperature is low enough. Our warm dark matter candidate can also be produced directly from the decay of the moduli field during reheating. In this case, obtaining the right amount of relic abundance, while keeping the reheat temperature high enough as to be consistent with Big Bang nucleosynthesis bounds, places constraints on the branching ratio for the decay of the moduli field into dark matter.

Double beta decay, lepton flavor violation, and collider signatures of left-right symmetric models with spontaneousD-parity breaking

We propose a class of left-right symmetric models (LRSMs) with spontaneous D parity breaking, where SU(2)_R breaks at the TeV scale while discrete left-right symmetry breaks around 10^9 GeV. By embedding this framework in a non-supersymmetric SO(10) Grand Unified Theory (GUT) with Pati-Salam symmetry as the highest intermediate breaking step, we obtain g_R / g_L ~ 0.6 between the right- and left-handed gauge couplings at the TeV scale. This leads to a suppression of beyond the Standard Model phenomena induced by the right-handed gauge coupling. Here we focus specifically on the consequences for neutrinoless double beta decay, low energy lepton flavour violation and LHC signatures due to the suppressed right handed currents. Interestingly, the reduced g_R allows us to interpret an excess of events observed recently in the range of 1.9 TeV to 2.4 TeV by the CMS group at the LHC as the signature of a right handed gauge boson in LRSMs with spontaneous D parity breaking. Moreover, the reduced right-handed gauge coupling also strongly suppresses the non-standard contribution of heavy states to the neutrinoless double beta decay rate as well as the amplitude of low energy lepton flavour violating processes. In a dominant type-II Seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation, we find that both sets of observables provide stringent and complimentary bounds which make it challenging to observe the scenario at the LHC.

Neutrinos with a linear seesaw mechanism in a scenario of gaugedB−Lsymmetry

We consider a mechanism for neutrino mass generation, based on a local B-L extension of the standard model, which becomes a linear seesaw regime for light neutrinos after spontaneous symmetry breaking. The spectrum of extra particles includes heavy neutrinos with masses near the TeV scale and a heavy Z' boson, as well as three extra neutral scalars and a charged scalar pair. We study the production and decays of these heavy particles at the LHC. Z' will decay mainly into heavy neutrino pairs or charged lepton pairs, similar to other low scale seesaw scenarios with local B-L, while the phenomenology of the extra scalars is what distinguishes the linear seesaw from the previous models. One of the neutral scalars is produced by Z' Z' fusion and decays mainly into vector boson pairs, the other two neutral scalars are less visible as they decay only into heavy or light neutrino pairs, and finally the charged scalars will decay mainly into charged leptons and missing energy.

Radiative neutrino mass in 3-3-1 scheme

We propose a new radiative mechanism for neutrino mass generation based on the $\mathrm{SU}(3{)}_{c}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}\mathrm{SU}(3{)}_{L}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}\mathrm{U}(1{)}_{X}$ electroweak gauge group.Lepton number is a symmetry of the Yukawa sector which is spontaneously broken in the gauge sector. As a result light Majorana masses arise from neutral gauge boson exchanges at the one-loop level. In addition to the isosinglet neutrinos that may be produced at the LHC through the extended gauge boson portals, the model contains new quarks which can also lie at the TeV scale, and which can provide a plethora of accessible collider phenomena.

Looking for the minimal inverse seesaw realisation

In this work we consider a simple extension of the Standard Model involving additional fermionic singlets and assume an underlying inverse seesaw mechanism (with one or more right-handed neutrinos and one or more sterile fermions) for neutrino mass generation. Under the assumption that both sterile states and right-handed neutrinos are present, our goal is to determine which is the minimal inverse seesaw realisation that accounts for neutrino data while at the same time complying with all experimental requirements (electroweak precision tests and laboratory constraints). This study aims at identifying the minimal inverse seesaw realisation for the 3-flavour and for the 3 + more-mixing schemes, the latter giving an explanation for the reactor anomalies and/or providing a possible candidate for the dark matter of the Universe. Based on a perturbative approach, our generic study shows that in the class of inverse seesaw models giving rise to a 3-flavour flavour mixing scheme, only two mass scales are relevant (the light neutrino mass scale, mν and the mass of the right-handed neutrinos, MR) while in the case of a 3+1-mixing scheme, an additional mass scale (μ∈[mν,MR]) is required. For each of the two obtained inverse seesaw frameworks, we conduct a thorough numerical analysis, providing predictions for the hierarchy of the light neutrino spectrum and for the effective mass in neutrinoless double beta decay.