Admixture of quasi-Dirac and Majorana neutrinos with tri-bimaximal mixing

We propose a realization of the so-called bimodal/schizophrenic model proposed recently. We assume S₄, the permutation group of four objects as flavor symmetry giving tri-bimaximal lepton mixing at leading order. In these models the second massive neutrino state is assumed quasi-Dirac and the remaining neutrinos are Majorana states. In the case of inverse mass hierarchy, the lower bound on the neutrinoless double beta decay parameter mee is about two times that of the usual lower bound, within the range of sensitivity of the next generation of experiments.     

Model-independent analysis of tri-bimaximal mixing: A softly-broken hidden or an accidental symmetry?

To address the issue of whether tri-bimaximal mixing (TBM) is a softly-broken hidden or an accidental symmetry, we adopt a model-independent analysis in which we perturb a neutrino mass matrix leading to TBM in the most general way but leave the three texture zeros of the diagonal charged lepton mass matrix unperturbed. We compare predictions for the perturbed neutrino TBM parameters with those obtained from typical SO(10) grand unified theories with a variety of flavor symmetries. Whereas SO(10) GUTs almost always predict a normal mass hierarchy for the light neutrinos, TBM has a priori no preference for neutrino masses. We find, in particular for the latter, that the value of |U_e3| is very sensitive to the neutrino mass scale and ordering. Observation of |U_e3|²>0.001 to 0.01 within the next few years would be incompatible with softly-broken TBM and a normal mass hierarchy and would suggest that the apparent TBM symmetry is an accidental symmetry instead. No such conclusions can be drawn for the inverted and quasi-degenerate hierarchy spectra.     

A simple modification of the maximal mixing scenario for three light neutrinos

We suggest a simple modification of the maximal mixing scenario (withS ₃ permutation symmetry) for three light neutrinos. Our neutrino mass matrix has smaller permutation symmetryS ₂(ν _μ ?ν _e ), and is consistent with all neutrino experiments except the³⁷Cl experiment. The resulting mass eigenvalues for three neutrinos arem ₁≈(2.55?1.27)×10^?3eV,m _2,3≈(0.71?1.43)eV for Δm _LSND ² =0.5?2.0eV². Then these light neutrinos can account for ～(2.4?4.8)% (6.2?12.4%) of the dark matter forh=0.8 (0.5). Our model predicts theν _μ →ν _τ oscillation probability in the range sensitive to the future experiments such as CHORUS and NOMAD.     

Maximum Entropy Inferences on the Axion Mass in Models with Axion-Neutrino Interaction

In this work, we use the maximum entropy principle (MEP) to infer the mass of an axion which interacts to photons and neutrinos in an effective low energy theory. The Shannon entropy function to be maximized is defined in terms of the axion branching ratios. We show that MEP strongly constrains the axion mass taking into account the current experimental bounds on the neutrinos masses. Assuming that the axion is massive enough to decay into all the three neutrinos and that MEP fixes all the free parameters of the model, the inferred axion mass is in the interval 0.1 eV < m _A < 0.2 eV, which can be tested by forthcoming experiments such as IAXO. However, even in the case where MEP fixes just the axion mass and no other parameter, we found that 0.1 eV < m _A < 6.3 eV in the DFSZ model with right-handed neutrinos. Moreover, a light axion, allowed to decay to photons and the lightest neutrino only, is determined by MEP as a viable dark matter candidate.     

Neutrino masses as a second-order effect in Higgs coupling

It is suggested that in the usual type of gauge theory all fermions, including neutrinos, have right-handed components. The smallness or vanishing of the observed neutrino masses is explained by the fact that the appropriate neutral Higgs boson does not develop a non-zero vacuum expectation value. In the case when the neutrino masses do not vanish they are finite, of order G_Fm³, where m is the mass of the charged lepton. Non-conservation of lepton flavor gives rise to an instability of all neutrinos except v_e and to μ→e+γ decay, but at a very low level.     

Lepton flavour violation in the constrained MSSM with constrained sequential dominance

We consider charged lepton flavour violation (LFV) in the constrained minimal supersymmetric Standard Model, extended to include the see-saw mechanism with constrained sequential dominance (CSD), where CSD provides a natural see-saw explanation of tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing. When charged lepton corrections to tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing are included, we discover characteristic correlations among the LFV branching ratios, depending on the mass ordering of the right-handed neutrinos, with a pronounced dependence on the leptonic mixing angle θ₁₃${\theta }_{13}$ (and in some cases also on the Dirac CP phase δ).     

Lepton flavor violation and seesaw symmetries

When the standard model is extended with right-handed neutrinos the symmetries of the resulting Lagrangian are enlarged with a new global U(1) _R Abelian factor. In the context of minimal seesaw models we analyze the implications of a slightly broken U(1) _R symmetry on charged lepton flavor violating decays. We find, depending on the R-charge assignments, models where charged lepton flavor violating rates can be within measurable ranges. In particular, we show that in the resulting models due to the structure of the light neutrino mass matrix muon flavor violating decays are entirely determined by neutrino data (up to a normalization factor) and can be sizable in a wide right-handed neutrino mass range.     

Search for heavy sterile neutrinos in trileptons at the LHC

We present a search strategy for both Dirac and Majorana sterile neutrinos from the purely leptonic decays of W~±→e~±e~±μ~?ν and μ~±μ~± e~?ν at the 14 TeV LHC. The discovery and exclusion limits for sterile neutrinos are shown using both the Cut-and-Count(CC) and Multi-Variate Analysis(MVA) methods. We also discriminate between Dirac and Majorana sterile neutrinos by exploiting a set of kinematic observables which differ between the Dirac and Majorana cases. We find that the MVA method, compared to the more common CC method, can greatly enhance the discovery and discrimination limits. Two benchmark points with sterile neutrino mass m N =20 GeV and 50 GeV are tested. For an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb~(-1), sterile neutrinos can be found with 5σ significance if heavy-to-light neutrino mixings |U_(Ne)|~2~|U_(Nμ)|~2~10~(-6), while Majorana vs. Dirac discrimination can be reached if at least one of the mixings is of order 10~(-5).     

Majorana masses,photon gas heating and cosmological constraints on neutrinos

Non-vanishing Majorana masses generally lead to flavor-changing neutral currents in the neutrino sector. It is shown that when both right- and left-handed neutrinos have non-vanishing Majorana masses (M_R≠0 and M_L≠0), flavor-changing neutral currents could be as large as flavor-diagonal ones. However, when only right-handed neutrinos have non-vanishing Majorana masses (M_R≠0 but M_L=0), flavor-changing neutral currents are small. If M_R?D (Dirac masses), they are of $\text{O}\text{((}\text{D}\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>R</mtext>}}\text{)}{}^2\text{)}$. If M_R?D, they are $\text{?(}\text{m}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>L</mtext>}}\text{m}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>H</mtext>}}\text{)}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$, where m_L and m_H are masses of light and heavy neutrinos appearing in a flavor-changing process.By using these results we examine cosmological implications of non-vanishing flavor-changing neutral currents. Heavy neutrinos can decay into three light neutrinos at an appreciable rate by exchanging a Z-boson. It is demonstrated that owing to this decay mode, heavy neutrinos of mass larger than 70 keV but less than 2m_e give rise to no contradiction with the standard big bang cosmology in the most general case.We also show that if there exist heavy neutrinos of mass m_H2m_e, their decay at an early era of the universe induces photon gas heating, which alters Cowsik and McClelland's constraint on light neutrino masses to Σm_L < k · 100 eV with the sum running over all Majorana eigenstates. Here the constant k, representing the heating effect of the photon gas, is restricted by the deuterium abundance of the present universe. For instance, Σm_L < 240 eV for m_H ～ 25 MeV and the present baryon density = 3.4 × 10^?31 g · cm^?3.     

A search for decays of heavy neutrinos in the mass range 0.5–2.8 GeV

A search for decays of heavy neutrinos was conducted by the CHARM Collaboration in a prompt neutrino beam produced by dumping 400 GeV protons in a Cu target, and in the CERN wide-band neutrino beam produced by 400 GeV primary protons. No candidate event was found. In the beam-dump experiment heavy neutrinos have been assumed to be produced by mixing in charmed D meson decays. Neutrinos decaying into e⁺e⁻v_e, μ⁺e⁻v_μ, and μ⁺μ⁻v_μ were searched for. Limits of |U_ei|², |U_μi|² < 10⁻⁷ were obtained for neutrino masses around 1.5 GeV. In the wide-band experiment heavy neutrinos were assumed to be produced by neutral-current neutrino interactions in the CHARM calorimeter. Here a search was made for neutrinos decaying into a μ and hadrons. This experiment is sensitive to decays of neutrinos with mass in the range 0.5–2.8 GeV with limits of |U_μi|² < 3 × 10⁻⁴ for masses around 2.5 GeV. These measurements extend our previous results in the mass range 10–400 MeV.     

Lepton mixing and neutrino oscillations

The present article is a review of phenomena connected with neutrino oscillations. Mixing of two neutrinos (Majorana as well as Dirac) with masses m₁ and m₂ is considered in detail. It is shown that the hypothesis of lepton mixing is not in contradiction with the existing data if |m₁²?m₂²| ? 1 (eV)². Possible experiments designed to reveal neutrino oscillations at reactor, meson factory and high energy accelerator facilities are considered. In such experiments oscillation might be found if $\text{|m}{}_1{}^2\text{?m}{}_2{}^2\text{| ? 0.01}\text{(eV)}{}^2$. The possibilities of searching for oscillations by experiments on cosmic ray neutrinos and especially on solar neutrinos are discussed in detail. The last experiments have an incredible high sensitivity from the point of view of testing the lepton mixing hypothesis (oscillation effects might be observable if $\text{|m}{}_1{}^2\text{?m}{}_2{}^2\text{| ? 10}{}^{\mathrm{?12}}\text{(eV)}{}^2$). The “solar neutrino puzzle” is also discussed from the point of view of lepton mixing. Neutrino oscillations are considered then in the case where in nature there exist N ? 2 neutrino types.In conclusion the case of heavy lepton mixing is considered. It is shown that in a concrete scheme with right-handed currents, the probabilities of such processes as μ → eγ, μ → 3e etc. can be close to existing experimental upper limits, provided the heavy lepton masses are of an order of a few GeV, whereas the probabilities of the above processes are entirely negligible if only neutrinos are mixed.     

Majorana neutrinos, <Emphasis Type="Italic">CP</Emphasis> violation,neutrinoless double beta and tritium beta decays

If the present or upcoming searches for neutrinoless double beta ((ββ)_0ν) decay give a positive result, the Majorana nature of massive neutrinos will be established. From the determination of the value of the (ββ)_0ν-decay effective Majorana mass parameter (|〈m〉|), it would be possible to obtain information on the type of neutrino mass spectrum. Assuming 3-ν mixing and massive Majorana neutrinos, we discuss the information that a measurement of, or an upper bound on, |〈m〉| can provide on the value of the lightest neutrino mass m₁. With additional data on the neutrino masses obtained in ³H β-decay experiments, it might be possible to establish whether the CP symmetry is violated in the lepton sector. This would require very high precision measurements. If CP invariance holds, the allowed patterns of the relative CP parities of the massive Majorana neutrinos would be determined.     

Lepton mixing under the lepton charge nonconservation, neutrino masses and oscillations and the “forbidden” decay µ− → e − + γ

The lepton-charge (L _e , L _μ , L _τ ) nonconserving interaction leads to the mixing of the electron, muon, and tau neutrinos, which manifests itself in spatial oscillations of a neutrino beam, and also to the mixing of the electron, negative muon, and tau lepton, which, in particular, may be the cause of the “forbidden” radiative decay of the negative muon into the electron and γ quantum. Under the assumption that the nondiagonal elements of the mass matrices for neutrinos and ordinary leptons, connected with the lepton charge nonconservation, are the same, and by performing the joint analysis of the experimental data on neutrino oscillations and experimental restriction for the probability of the decay µ^? → e ^? + γ per unit time, the following estimate for the lower bound of neutrino mass has been obtained: m ^(ν) > 1.5 eV/c ².     

Heavy neutrino mixing and single production at linear collider

We study the single production of heavy neutrinos via the processes e⁻e⁺ → νN and e⁻γ → W⁻N at future linear colliders. As a base of our considerations we take a wide class of models, both with vanishing and non-vanishing left-handed Majorana neutrino mass matrix m_L. We perform a model independent analyses of the existing experimental data and find connections between the characteristic of heavy neutrinos (masses, mixings, CP eigenvalues) and the m_L parameters. We show that with the present experimental constraints heavy neutrino masses almost up to the collision energy can be tested in the future experiments.     

Neutrino mass and mixing in the 3-3-1 model and S 3 flavor symmetry with minimal Higgs content

A new S ₃ flavor model based on the SU(3) _C ? SU(3) _L ? U(1) _X gauge symmetry responsible for fermion masses and mixings different from our previous work [14, 17] is constructed. The new feature is a two-dimensional representation of a Higgs anti-sextet under S ₃, which is responsible for neutrino masses and mixings. The neutrinos acquire small masses from only an anti-sextet of SU(3), which is in a doublet under S ₃. If the difference of components of the anti-sextet is regarded as a small perturbation, S ₃ is equivalently broken into identity, the corresponding neutrino mass mixing matrix acquires the most general form, and the model can fit the latest data on neutrino oscillations. This way of symmetry breaking helps us reduce a content in the Higgs sector, to only one anti-sextet instead of two as in our previous work [14]. Our results show that the neutrino masses are naturally small and a small deviation from the tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing form can be realized. The Higgs potential of the model as well as the minimization conditions and gauge boson masses and mixings are also considered.     

Baryogenesis via Sterile neutrino oscillation and neutrino parameters

We investigate baryogenesis in the νMSM which is the Minimal Standard Model (MSM) extended by three right-handed neutrinos with Majorana masses being smaller than the weak scale. In this model three sterile neutrinos, which are almost right-handed states, play important roles in cosmology. The baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU) is generated via mechanism through flavor oscillation between two sterile neutrinos N₂ and N₃ which are degenerate in masses. We consider the case when BAU is solely originated from the CP violating phases in the mixing matrix of active neutrinos, i.e., the Dirac phase δ and the Majorana phase η, and study how BAU depends on these CP violating phases.     

Single <Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis>′ production at compact linear collider based on <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis>-γ collisions

We analyze the potential of the compact linear collider (CLIC) based on e-γ collisions to search for the new Z′ gauge boson. Single Z′ production on e-γ colliders in two SU(3)_C?SU(3)_L ? U(1)_N models, the minimal model and the model with right-handed neutrinos is studied in detail. The results show that new Z′ gauge bosons can be observed on the CLIC and that the cross sections in the model with right-handed neutrinos are bigger than those in the minimal one.     

Possible alternatives to tri-bimaximal mixing

Possible alternatives to tri-bimaximal mixing are presented based on other symmetry principles, and their predictions for |U _e3|, sin ² θ ₁₂ and sin ² θ ₂₃ are compared to the present neutrino mixing data. In some cases perturbations are required to give better agreement with the data, and the use of a minimal approach is illustrated. Precise experimental determinations of the mixing parameters will be required to decipher the correct mixing pattern and to pin down the appropriate flavor symmetry.     

Hierarchical matrices in the see-saw mechanism,large neutrino mixing and leptogenesis

We consider the see-saw mechanism for hierarchical Dirac and Majorana neutrino mass matrices m _D and M _R, including the CP violating phases. Simple arguments about the structure of the neutrino mass matrix and the requirement of successful leptogenesis lead to the situation that one of the right-handed Majorana neutrinos is much heavier than the other two, which in turn display a rather mild hierarchy. It is investigated how for the neutrino mixing one small and two large mixing angles are generated. The mixing matrix element |U _e3|² is larger than 10^-3 and a characteristic ratio between the branching ratios of lepton flavor violating charged lepton decays is found. Successful leptogenesis implies sizable CP violation in oscillation experiments. As in the original minimal see-saw model, the signs of the baryon asymmetry of the universe and of the CP asymmetry in neutrino oscillations are equal and there is no connection between the leptogenesis phase and the effective mass as measurable in neutrinoless double beta decay.Received: 28 May 2003, Revised: 13 September 2003, Published online: 26 November 2003     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">O</Emphasis>(1) eV sterile neutrino in <Emphasis Type="Italic">f</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>) gravity

We refer [1] to the role of an additional O(1) eV sterile neutrino in modified gravity models. We find parameter constraints in particular f(R) gravity model using following up-to-dated cosmological data: measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy, the CMB lensing potential, the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), the cluster mass function and the Hubble constant. It was obtained for the sterile neutrino mass 0.47 eV < m _ν,sterile < 1 eV (2σ) assuming that the sterile neutrinos are thermalized and the active neutrinos are massless, not significantly larger than in the standard cosmology model within the same data set: 0.45 eV < m _ν,sterile < 0.92 eV (2σ). But, if the mass of sterile neutrino is fixed and equals ≈ 1.5 eV according to various anomalies in neutrino oscillation experiments, f(R) gravity is much more consistent with observation data than the CDM model.