Search results for "lepton number"
showing 10 items of 106 documents
Weak Interactions and Solar Neutrinos: Testing the Oscillation Hypothesis
1988
Various proposals for understanding the reduced solar neutrino flux in terms of non-standard neutrino propagation properties are briefly reviewed in the context of weak interaction theory. Emphasis is given to neutrino oscillation models which may be tested experimentally, despite the small mass parameter involved. Spontaneous lepton number (and R parity) breaking in supergravity — the supersymmetric doublet Majoron model — solves the solar neutrino problem through matter-enhanced neutrino oscillations. The spectrum of supersymmetric particles is restricted in a way that will be probed by high energy collider experiments. In addition, low energy processes associated with the existence of th…
Analysis of light neutrino exchange and short-range mechanisms in 0νββ decay
2020
Neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) is a crucial test for lepton number violation. Observation of this process would have fundamental implications for neutrino physics, theories beyond the Standard Model and cosmology. Focusing on so-called short-range operators of 0νββ and their potential interplay with the standard light Majorana neutrino exchange, we present the first complete calculation of the relevant nuclear matrix elements, performed within the interacting boson model (IBM-2). Furthermore, we calculate the relevant phase space factors using exact Dirac electron wave functions, taking into account the finite nuclear size and screening by the electron cloud. The obtained numerical r…
R-Parity Breaking in Minimal Supergravity
1999
We consider the Minimal Supergravity Model with universality of scalar and gaugino masses plus an extra bilinear term in the superpotential which breaks R-Parity and lepton number. We explicitly check the consistency of this model with the radiative breaking of the electroweak symmetry. A neutrino mass is radiatively induced, and large Higgs-Lepton mixings are compatible with its experimental bound. We also study briefly the lightest Higgs mass. This one-parameter extension of SUGRA-MSSM is the simplest way of introducing R-parity violation.
Towards a New Minimal SO(10) Unification
2012
We argue that non-supersymmetric SO(10) models based on a renormalizable Higgs sector in which spontaneous symmetry breaking is triggered by the VEVs of a 45-dimensional adjoint and a 126-dimensional tensor representations can provide a potentially realistic yet relatively simple framework for a future robust estimate of the proton lifetime. Following closely the work Phys.Rev.D85, 095014 (2012), arXiv: 1202.0807 [hep-ph] we comment on the gauge unification constraints on the B-L breaking scale and show that there are several regions in the parameter space of the minimal model where the seesaw scale in the phenomenologically favoured ballpark of around 10^13-14 GeV is consistently supported.
Leptogenesis with small violation of B-L
2012
We analyze leptogenesis in the context of seesaw models with almost conserved lepton number, focusing on the L-conserving contribution to the flavoured CP asymmetries. We find that, contrary to previous claims, successful leptogenesis is feasible for masses of the lightest heavy neutrino as low as M1 ~ 10^6 GeV, without resorting to the resonant enhancement of the CP asymmetry for strongly degenerate heavy neutrinos. This lower limit renders thermal leptogenesis compatible with the gravitino bound in supersymmetric scenarios.
Nuclear physics of non-standard 0νβ β-decay
2019
The observation neutrinoless double beta (0νβ β) decay remains crucial for understanding lepton number violation. In view of the difficulties to observe the mass mechanism of 0νβ β-decay, investigations of other mechanisms are in order. These non-standard mechanisms can be divided into short-range and long-range mechanisms. Recently, we have started systematic study for all possible short-range and long-range non-standard mechanisms. The aim of this study is twofold: I) to provide explicit formulas for the nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) and phase-space factors (PSFs) from which the decay rate for one or a combination of mechanisms operating at the same time can be calculated; II) to provide…
Falsifying High-Scale Leptogenesis at the LHC
2013
Measuring a non-zero value for the cross section of any lepton number violating (LNV) process would put a strong lower limit on the washout factor for the effective lepton number density in the early universe at times close to the electroweak phase transition and thus would lead to important constraints on any high-scale model for the generation of the observed baryon asymmetry based on LNV. In particular, for leptogenesis models with masses of the right-handed neutrinos heavier than the mass scale observed at the LHC, the implied large washout factors would lead to a violation of the out-of-equilibrium condition and exponentially suppress the net lepton number produced in such leptogenesis…
Effective Lagrangian approach to neutrinoless double beta decay and neutrino masses
2012
Neutrinoless double beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay can in general produce electrons of either chirality, in contrast with the minimal Standard Model (SM) extension with only the addition of the Weinberg operator, which predicts two left-handed electrons in the final state. We classify the lepton number violating (LNV) effective operators with two leptons of either chirality but no quarks, ordered according to the magnitude of their contribution to \znbb decay. We point out that, for each of the three chirality assignments, $e_Le_L, e_Le_R$ and $e_Re_R$, there is only one LNV operator of the corresponding type to lowest order, and these have dimensions 5, 7 and 9, respectively. Neutrino masse…
Neutrinoless double β decay with small neutrino masses
2013
Proceedings of the Corfu Summer Institute 2012 "School and Workshops on Elementary Particle Physicsand Gravity", September 8-27, 2012, Corfu (Greece). PoS(Cofu2012)028.
Lepton-number violation with quasi-Dirac neutrinos
1983
We investigate lepton-number violation in weak interactions with massive Dirac neutrinos. In the framework of a simple $\mathrm{SU}{(3)}_{L}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{U}(1)$ electroweak model we find that neutrinos naturally acquire only Dirac masses at tree level, and for an odd number of lepton families, one neutrino remains massless. After a spontaneous breakdown of symmetry we find that the SU(2)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}U(1) effective theory has lepton-number-violating currents which couple to the standard gauge bosons. Flavorconserving $|\ensuremath{\Delta}l|=2$ processes such as neutrinoless double-$\ensuremath{\beta}$ decay are forbidden in the simplest model,…