We perform a detailed study of the renormalization group equations in the inverse seesaw model. Especially, we derive compact analytical formulas for the running of the neutrino parameters in the standard model and the minimal supersymmetric standard model, and illustrate that, due to large Yukawa coupling corrections, significant running effects on the leptonic mixing angles can be naturally obtained in the proximity of the electroweak scale, perhaps even within the reach of the LHC. In general, if the mass spectrum of the light neutrinos is nearly degenerate, the running effects are enhanced to experimentally accessible levels, well suitable for the investigation of the underlying dynamics behind the neutrino mass generation and the lepton flavor structure. In addition, the effects of the seesaw thresholds are discussed, and a brief comparison to other seesaw models is carried out.
We show that, in the low-scale type-I seesaw model, renormalization group running of neutrino parameters may lead to significant modifications of the leptonic mixing angles in view of so-called seesaw threshold effects. Especially, we derive analytical formulas for radiative corrections to neutrino parameters in crossing the different seesaw thresholds, and show that there may exist enhancement factors efficiently boosting the renormalization group running of the leptonic mixing angles. We find that, as a result of the seesaw threshold corrections to the leptonic mixing angles, various flavor symmetric mixing patterns (e.g., bi-maximal and tri-bimaximal mixing patterns) can be easily accommodated at relatively low energy scales, which is well within the reach of running and forthcoming experiments (e.g., the LHC).
We study the generation of light neutrino masses in an extra-dimensional model, where right-handed neutrinos are allowed to propagate in the extra dimension, while the Standard model (SM) particles are confined to a brane. Motivated by the fact that extra-dimensional models are non-renormalizable, we truncate the Kaluza–Klein (KK) towers at a maximal KK index. The structure of the bulk Majorana mass term, motivated by the Sherk–Schwarz mechanism, implies that the right-handed KK neutrinos pair to form Dirac neutrinos, except for a number of unpaired Majorana neutrinos at the top of each tower. These heavy Majorana neutrinos are the only sources of lepton number breaking in the model, and similarly to the type-I seesaw mechanism, they naturally generate small masses for the left-handed neutrinos. The lower KK modes mix with the light neutrinos, and the mixing effects are not suppressed with respect to the light neutrino masses. Compared to conventional fermionic seesaw models, the non-unitary effects induced by such mixing are quite significant. We study the signals of this model at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and find that the current bounds on the non-unitarity parameters are strong enough to exclude an observation.
We study the renormalization group (RG) running of the neutrino masses and the leptonic mixing parameters in two different extra-dimensional models, namely, the Universal Extra Dimensions (UED) model and a model, where the Standard Model (SM) bosons probe an extra dimension and the SM fermions are confined to a four-dimensional brane. In particular, we derive the beta function for the neutrino mass operator in the UED model. We also rederive the beta function for the charged-lepton Yukawa coupling, and confirm some of the existing results in the literature. The generic features of the RG running of the neutrino parameters within the two models are analyzed and, in particular, we observe a power-law behavior for the running. We note that the running of the leptonic mixing angle theta(12) can be sizable, while the running of theta(23) and theta(13) is always negligible. In addition, we show that the tri-bimaximal and the bimaximal mixing patterns at a high-energy scale are compatible with low-energy experimental data, while a tri-small mixing pattern is not. Finally, we perform a numerical scan over the low-energy parameter space to infer the high-energy distribution of the parameters. Using this scan, we also demonstrate how the high-energy theta(12) is correlated with the smallest neutrino mass and the Majorana phases.
We study how the recent ATLAS and CMS Higgs mass bounds affect the renormalization group running of the physical parameters in universal extra dimensions. Using the running of the Higgs self-coupling constant, we derive bounds on the cutoff scale of the extra-dimensional theory itself. We show that the running of physical parameters, such as the fermion masses and the CKM mixing matrix, is significantly restricted by these bounds. In particular, we find that the running of the gauge couplings cannot be sufficient to allow gauge unification at the cutoff scale.
We study the generation of small neutrino masses in an extra-dimensional model, where singlet fermions are allowed to propagate in the extra dimension, while the standard model particles are confined to a brane. Motivated by the fact that extra-dimensional models are nonrenormalizable, we truncate the Kaluza-Klein towers at a maximal Kaluza-Klein number. This truncation, together with the structure of the bulk Majorana mass term, motivated by the Sherk-Schwarz mechanism, implies that the Kaluza-Klein modes of the singlet fermions pair to form Dirac fermions, except for a number of unpaired Majorana fermions at the top of each tower. These heavy Majorana fermions are the only sources of lepton number breaking in the model, and similarly to the type-I seesaw mechanism, they naturally generate small masses for the left-handed neutrinos. The lower Kaluza-Klein modes mix with the light neutrinos, and the mixing effects are not suppressed with respect to the light-neutrino masses. Compared to conventional fermionic seesaw models, such mixing can be more significant. We study the signals of this model at the Large Hadron Collider, and find that the current low-energy bounds on the nonunitarity of the leptonic mixing matrix are strong enough to exclude an observation.
The EUROnu project has studied three possible options for future, high intensity neutrino oscillation facilities in Europe. The first is a Super Beam, in which the neutrinos come from the decay of pions created by bombarding targets with a 4 MW proton beam from the CERN High Power Superconducting Proton Linac. The far detector for this facility is the 500 kt MEMPHYS water Cherenkov, located in the Frejus tunnel. The second facility is the Neutrino Factory, in which the neutrinos come from the decay of mu(+) and mu(-) beams in a storage ring. The far detector in this case is a 100 kt magnetized iron neutrino detector at a baseline of 2000 km. The third option is a Beta Beam, in which the neutrinos come from the decay of beta emitting isotopes, in particular He-6 and Ne-18, also stored in a ring. The far detector is also the MEMPHYS detector in the Frejus tunnel. EUROnu has undertaken conceptual designs of these facilities and studied the performance of the detectors. Based on this, it has determined the physics reach of each facility, in particular for the measurement of CP violation in the lepton sector, and estimated the cost of construction. These have demonstrated that the best facility to build is the Neutrino Factory. However, if a powerful proton driver is constructed for another purpose or if the MEMPHYS detector is built for astroparticle physics, the Super Beam also becomes very attractive.
We propose a simplified version of the inverse seesaw model, in which only two pairs of the gauge-singlet neutrinos are introduced, to interpret the observed neutrino mass hierarchy and lepton flavor mixing at or below the TeV scale. This "minimal" inverse seesaw scenario (MISS) is technically natural and experimentally testable. In particular, we show that the effective parameters describing the non-unitary neutrino mixing matrix are strongly correlated in the MISS, and thus, their upper bounds can be constrained by current experimental data in a more restrictive way. The Jarlskog invariants of non-unitary CP violation are calculated, and the discovery potential of such new CP-violating effects in the near detector of a neutrino factory is discussed.
We investigate nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSIs) in the triplet seesaw model featuring nontrivial correlations between NSI parameters and neutrino masses and mixing parameters. We show that sizable NSIs can be generated as a consequence of a nearly degenerate neutrino mass spectrum. Thus, these NSIs could lead to quite significant signals of lepton flavor violating decays such as mu(-) --> e(-) nu(e)(nu) over bar (mu) and mu(+) --> e(+)(nu) over bar (e)nu(mu) at a future neutrino factory, effects adding to the uncertainty in determination of the Earth matter density profile, as well as characteristic patterns of the doubly charged Higgs decays observable at the Large Hadron Collider.
We analyze the structure of the nonunitary leptonic mixing matrix in the inverse seesaw model with heavy singlets accessible at the LHC. In this model, unlike in the usual TeV seesaw scenarios, the low-scale right-handed neutrinos do not suffer from naturalness issues. Underlying correlations among various parameters governing the nonunitarity effects are established, which leads to a considerable improvement of the generic nonunitarity bounds. In view of this, we study the discovery potential of the nonunitarity effects at future experiments, focusing on the sensitivity limits at a neutrino factory.
The impact of heavy mediators on neutrino oscillations is typically described by non-standard four-fermion interactions (NSIs) or non-unitarity (NU). We focus on leptonic dimension-six effective operators which do not produce charged lepton flavor violation. These operators lead to particular correlations among neutrino production, propagation, and detection non-standard effects. We point out that these NSIs and NU phenomenologically lead, in fact, to very similar effects for a neutrino factory, for completely different fundamental reasons. We discuss how the parameters and probabilities are related in this case, and compare the sensitivities. We demonstrate that the NSIs and NU can, in principle, be distinguished for large enough effects at the example of non-standard effects in the mu-tau-sector, which basically corresponds to differentiating between scalars and fermions as heavy mediators as leading order effect. However, we find that a near detector at superbeams could provide very synergistic information, since the correlation between source and matter NSIs is broken for hadronic neutrino production, while NU is a fundamental effect present at any experiment.
We present, both exactly and approximately, a complete set of mappings between the vacuum (or fundamental) leptonic mixing parameters and the effective ones in matter with non-standard neutrino interaction (NSI) effects included. Within the three-flavor neutrino framework and a constant matter density profile, a full set of sum rules is established, which enables us to reconstruct the moduli of the effective leptonic mixing matrix elements, in terms of the vacuum mixing parameters in order to reproduce the neutrino oscillation probabilities for future long-baseline experiments. Very compact, but quite accurate, approximate mappings are obtained based on series expansions in the neutrino mass hierarchy parameter eta equivalent to Delta m(21)(2)/Delta m(31)(2), the vacuum leptonic mixing parameter s(13) equivalent to sin theta(13), and the NSI parameters epsilon(alpha beta). A detailed numerical analysis about how the NSIs affect the smallest leptonic mixing angle theta(13), the deviation of the leptonic mixing angle theta(23) from its maximal mixing value, and the transition probabilities useful for future experiments are performed using our analytical results.
The non-unitarity effects in leptonic flavor mixing are regarded as one of the generic features of the type-1 seesaw model. Therefore, we explore these effects in the TeV-scale type-1 seesaw model, and show that there exist non-trivial correlations among the non-unitarity parameters, stemming from the typical flavor structure of the low-scale seesaw model. In general, it follows from analytical discussions and numerical results that all the six non-unitarity parameters are related to three model parameters, while the widely studied parameters eta(e tau) and eta(mu tau) cannot be phenomenologically significant simultaneously.
We investigate non-standard neutrino interactions (NSIs) in the Zee-Babu model. The size of NSIs predicted by this model is obtained from a full scan over the parameter space. taking into account constraints from low-energy experiments such as searches for lepton flavor violation (LFV) and the requirement to obtain a viable neutrino mass matrix. The dependence on the scale of new physics as well as on the type of the neutrino mass hierarchy is discussed. We find that NSIs at the source of a future neutrino factory may be at an observable level in the nu(e) -> nu(tau) and/or nu(mu) -> nu(tau) channels. In particular, if the doubly charged scalar of the model has a mass in reach of the LHC and if the neutrino mass hierarchy is inverted, a highly predictive scenario is obtained with observable signals at the LHC, in upcoming neutrino oscillation experiments, in LFV processes, and for NSIs at a neutrino factory.
We study non-standard interactions (NSIs) at reactor neutrino experiments, and in particular, the mimicking effects on theta(13). We present generic formulas for oscillation probabilities including NSIs from sources and detectors. Instructive mappings between the fundamental leptonic mixing parameters and the effective leptonic mixing parameters are established. In addition, NSI corrections to the mixing angles theta(13) and theta(12) are discussed in detailed. Finally, we show that, even for a vanishing theta(13), all Oscillation phenomenon may still be observed ill future short baseline reactor neutrino experiments, such as Double Chooz and Daya Bay, due to the existences of NSIs.
The motivations and phenomena of seesaw models at the TeV scale are briefly reviewed. We show that nonstandard neutrino interactions and non-unitary effects are two typical features of low-scale scalar and fermionic seesaw models, respectively. For scalar seesaw models, in principle, significant non-standard interaction effects can be accommodated in the type-II seesaw model. As for the low-scale fermionic seesaw models, the inverse seesaw model turns out to be the most natural one, and could be well tested at the future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments and the LHC.
Within the framework of the type-II seesaw model, we investigate in detail the non-standard neutrino interactions (NSIs). Non-trivial correlations between NSI parameters and neutrino masses and mixing parameters are established. We show that sizable NSIs can be generated as a consequence of a nearly degenerate neutrino mass spectrum. Significant zero distance effects in the near detector of a future neutrino factory, as well as characteristic decays of the doubly charged Higgs at the Large Hadron Collider are discussed.
We point out that the minimal seesaw model can provide a natural framework to accommodate tiny neutrino masses, while its experimental testability and notable predictiveness are still maintained. This possibility is based on the Observation that two heavy right-handed Majorana neutrinos in the minimal seesaw model may naturally emerge as a pseudo-Dirac fermion In a specific scenario, we show that the tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing can be produced, and only the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy is allowed The low-energy phenomena, including non-unitarity effects in neutrino oscillations, neutrinoless double-beta decays and rare lepton-flavor-violating decays of charged leptons l(alpha) -> l(beta)gamma, have been explored. The collider signatures of the heavy singlet neutrino are also briefly discussed (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved