Narrow Results

We explore the possibility that the three active (doublet) neutrinos have nearly degenerate masses which are split only by the usual seesaw mechanism from three sterile (singlet) neutrinos in the presence of a softly broken A₄ symmetry. We take the unconventional view that the sterile neutrinos may be light, i.e. less than 1 keV, and discuss some very interesting and novel phenomenology, including a connection between the LSND neutrino data and solar neutrino oscillations.

We argue that the difference between the observed approximate quark–lepton complementarity and the theoretical prediction based on realistic quark–lepton symmetry within the seesaw mechanism may be adjusted by means of a triplet contribution in the seesaw formula.

In this paper we show that the canonical seesaw mechanism can naturally be implemented in a particular class of electroweak SU(4)_L ⊗ U(1)_Y gauge models. The resulting neutrino mass spectrum is determined by just tuning a unique free parameter a within the algebraical method of treating gauge models with high symmetries proposed several years ago by Cotăescu. All the Standard Model phenomenology is preserved, being unaffected by the new physics occurring at a high breaking scale m ~ 10¹¹GeV.

We construct a neutrino mass matrix M_ν via a seesaw mechanism with perturbed invariant under a cyclic permutation by introducing a parameter δ into the diagonal elements of M_ν with the assumption that trace of the perturbed M_ν is equal to trace of the unperturbed M_ν. We found that the perturbed neutrino mass matrices M_ν can predict the mass-squared difference with the possible hierarchy of neutrino mass is normal or inverted hierarchy. By using the advantages of the mass-squared differences and mixing parameters data from neutrino oscillation experiments, we then have neutrino masses in inverted hierarchy with masses: |m₁| = 0.101023 eV, |m₂| = 0.101428 eV and |m₃| = 0.084413 eV.

An extension of the Standard Model (SM) is studied in which two right-handed (RH) neutrinos per generation are incorporated, but considering the hypothesis of the symmetry of lepton and quark contents in order to deprive the number of RH neutrinos of freedom, generate Dirac neutrinos and accommodate naturally tiny values for their masses. The high scale type-I seesaw regime is applied to the first, ordinary RH neutrino, whereas a low scale pseudo-Dirac scenario is used for the second, adulterant RH neutrino, implying that the first RH neutrino decouples at the high scale, while the second RH neutrino survives down to the low scale to pair off in a Dirac-like form with the corresponding left-handed (LH) neutrino. The small mass and couplings of this extra RH neutrino are explained by means of the statement of the symmetry of fermionic content, only regarded as a guideline to the natural choice of parameters since it is not a proper symmetry in the Lagrangian.

Recently we proposed a model for light Dirac neutrinos in which two right-handed (RH) neutrinos per generation are added to the particles of the Standard Model (SM), implemented with the symmetry of fermionic contents. The ordinary one is decoupled via the high scale type-I seesaw mechanism, while the extra pairs off with its left-handed (LH) partner. The symmetry of lepton and quark contents was merely used as a guideline to the choice of parameters because it is not a proper symmetry. Here we argue that the underlying symmetry to take for this correspondence is presymmetry, the hidden electroweak symmetry of the SM extended with RH neutrinos defined by transformations which exchange lepton and quark bare states with the same electroweak charges and no Majorana mass terms in the underlying Lagrangian. It gives a topological character to fractional charges, relates the number of families to the number of quark colors, and now guarantees the great disparity between the couplings of the two RH neutrinos. Thus, Dirac neutrinos with extremely small masses appear as natural predictions of presymmetry, satisfying the ’t Hooft’s naturalness conditions in the extended seesaw where the extra RH neutrinos serve to adulterate the mass properties in the low scale effective theory, which retains without extensions the gauge and Higgs sectors of the SM. However, the high energy threshold for the seesaw implies new physics to stabilize the quantum corrections to the Higgs boson mass in agreement with the naturalness requirement.

In the context of a typical model for fermion mass matrices, possibly based on the horizontal U(2) symmetry, we explore the effect of the type II seesaw mechanism on lepton mixings. We find that the combined contribution of type I and type II terms is able to explain the large but not maximal 1-2 mixing and the near maximal 2-3 mixing, while the 1-3 mixing angle is predicted to be small.

We consider a variant of seesaw mechanism by introducing extra singlet neutrinos and singlet scalar boson, and show how low scale leptogenesis is successfully realized in this scenario. We examine if the newly introduced neutral particles, either singlet Majorana neutrino or singlet scalar boson, can be a candidate for dark matter. We also discuss the implications of the dark matter detection through the scattering off the nucleus of the detecting material on our scenarios for dark matter.

The phenomenology of 3-neutrino mixing and of the related Dirac and Majorana leptonic CP violation is reviewed. The leptogenesis scenario of generation of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe, which is based on the see-saw mechanism of neutrino mass generation, is 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.

I argue that LHC may shed light on the nature of neutrino mass through the probe of the seesaw mechanism. The smoking gun signature is lepton number violation through the production of same sign lepton pairs, a collider analogy of the neutrinoless double beta decay. I discuss this in the context of left–right symmetric theories, which led originally to neutrino mass and the seesaw mechanism. A W_R gauge boson with a mass in a few TeV region could easily dominate neutrinoless double beta decay, and its discovery at LHC would have spectacular signatures of parity restoration and lepton number violation. Moreover, LHC can measure the masses of the right-handed neutrinos and the right-handed leptonic mixing matrix, which could in turn be used to predict the rates for neutrinoless double decay and lepton flavor violating violating processes. The LR scale at the LHC energies offers great hope of observing these low energy processes in the present and upcoming experiments.

A novel contribution to the leptonic CP asymmetries in type II seesaw leptogenesis scenarios is obtained for the cases in which flavor effects are relevant for the dynamics of leptogenesis. In the so-called flavored leptogenesis regime, the interference between the tree-level amplitude of the scalar triplet decaying into two leptons and the one-loop wave function correction with leptons in the loop, leads to a new nonvanishing CP asymmetry contribution. The latter conserves total lepton number but violates lepton flavor. Cases in which this novel contribution may be dominant in the generation of the baryon asymmetry are briefly discussed.

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.

Leptogenesis is the most favorable mechanism for generating the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU) which implies CP violation in the high energy scale. The low energy leptonic CP violation is expected to be observed in the neutrino oscillations and 0ν2β decay experiments. Generally, it is not possible to connect both the CP violations. Here we revisit the issue of connecting the two in flavored leptogenesis scenario within the Type I seesaw in the light of recent neutrino oscillation and Planck data. With the recent precise measurements of θ₁₃ and BAU, we are able to find new correlations between the low and high energy CP violating phases when leptogenesis occurs at temperature between 10⁹ to 10¹² GeV and there is no contribution to CP violation from the heavy neutrino sector.

With the historic discovery of the Higgs boson our picture of particle physics would have been complete were it not for the neutrino sector and cosmology. I briefly discuss the role of neutrino masses and mixing upon gauge coupling unification, electroweak breaking and the flavor sector. Time is ripe for new discoveries such as leptonic CP violation, charged lepton flavor violation and neutrinoless double beta decay. Neutrinos could also play a role in elucidating the nature of dark matter and cosmic inflation.

We study the possibility of connecting leptonic Dirac CP phase δ, lightest neutrino mass and baryon asymmetry of the universe within the framework of a model where both type I and type II seesaw mechanisms contribute to neutrino mass. Type I seesaw gives rise to Tri-Bimaximal (TBM) type neutrino mixing whereas type II seesaw acts as a correction in order to generate nonzero θ₁₃. We derive the most general form of type II seesaw mass matrix which cannot only give rise to correct neutrino mixing angles but also can generate nontrivial value of δ. Considering both the cases where type II seesaw is subleading and is equally dominant compared to type I seesaw, we correlate the type II seesaw term with δ and lightest neutrino mass. We further constrain the Dirac CP phase δ and hence the type II seesaw mass matrix from the requirement of producing the observed baryon asymmetry through the mechanism of leptogenesis.

In light of the latest neutrino data, we revisit a minimal seesaw model with the Frampton–Glashow–Yanagida ansatz. Renormalization-group running effects on neutrino masses and flavor mixing parameters are discussed and found to essentially have no impact on testing such a minimal scenario in low-energy neutrino experiments. However, since renormalization-group running can modify neutrino mixing parameters at high energies, it does affect the leptogenesis mechanism, which is responsible for the observed matter–antimatter asymmetry in our Universe. Furthermore, to ease the conflict between the naturalness argument and the successful leptogenesis, a special regime for resonant leptogenesis is also emphasized.

In the two zero flavor neutrino mass matrix scheme with nonvanishing Majorana effective mass $M_{ee}$ for the neutrinoless double beta decay, four textures are compatible with observed data. We obtain the complete list of the possible textures of four zero Dirac neutrino mass matrix $m_D$ in the seesaw mechanism providing these four flavor neutrino textures. Explicit analytical analysis of $m_D$ turns out to provide the relation of $m_D\propto \sqrt{M_{ee}}$.

One of the main purposes of SHiP experiment is to shed light on neutrino mass generation mechanisms like the so-called seesaw. We consider a minimal type-I seesaw neutrino mass mechanism model with two heavy neutral leptons (right-handed or sterile neutrinos) with arbitrary masses. Extremely high active-sterile mixing angle requires a correlation between the phases of the Dirac neutrino couplings. Actual experimental limits on the half-life of neutrinoless double beta decay $0\nu \beta \beta$-rate on the active-sterile mixing angle are not significative in constraining the masses or the mixing measurable by SHiP.

The presence of small neutrino masses and flavour mixings can be accounted for naturally in various models about extensions of the standard model, particularly in the seesaw mechanism models. In this work, we present a minimally extended seesaw framework with two right-handed neutrinos, where the active neutrino masses are derived in the radiative regime. Using the framework it can be shown that within certain mass limits, the light neutrino mass term can approach a form that is similar to its form under type-I seesaw mechanism. Apart from this, we show that the decay width of right-handed neutrinos (produced through the decay of $W$ boson in a particle collider) is short enough to cause a sufficiently long lifetime for the particles, thus ensuring an observable displacement in the LHC between the production and decay vertices. We comment on the fact that these displaced vertex signatures thus can serve as a means to verify the existence of these right-handed neutrinos in future experiments. Lastly, we line up the possibility of our future work where the vertex signatures of particles greater than the mass of $W$ boson can be worked upon.

The discovery of neutrino oscillations provides a solid evidence for nonzero neutrino masses and leptonic mixing. The fact that neutrino masses are so tiny constitutes a puzzling problem in particle physics. From the theoretical viewpoint, the smallness of neutrino masses can be elegantly explained through the seesaw mechanism. Another challenging issue for particle physics and cosmology is the explanation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in Nature. Among the viable mechanisms, leptogenesis is a simple and well-motivated framework. In this paper we briefly review these aspects, making emphasis on the possibility of linking neutrino physics to the cosmological baryon asymmetry originated from leptogenesis.