Correlation between the charged current interactions of light and heavy Majorana neutrinos

• Published in: Physics letters. B Vol. 660; no. 5; pp. 515 - 521
• Main Author: Xing, Zhi-zhong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 06.03.2008; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Exact sciences and technology; Nuclear physics; Physics; The physics of elementary particles and fields; 14.60.Pq; 13.10.+q; 25.30.Pt; LHC collider; Heavy neutrino; Mixing; Charged-current interactions; Parameterization; Flavor; Triplets; Asymmetry; Neutrino oscillations; Violations; Correlations; Standard model; CP invariance; R matrix; Majorana theory; Rotation angle; Unitarity
• ISSN: 0370-2693; 1873-2445
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2008.01.038

The evidence for neutrino oscillations implies that three neutrino flavors (νe,νμ,ντ) must have different mass states (ν1,ν2,ν3). The most popular idea of generating tiny masses of νi is to introduce three heavy Majorana neutrinos Ni (for i=1,2,3) into the Standard Model and implement the seesaw mechanism. In this approach the neutrino mixing matrix V appearing in the charged current interactions of νi is not unitary, and the strength of unitarity violation of V is associated with the matrix R which describes the strength of charged current interactions of Ni. We present an explicit parametrization of the correlation between V and R in terms of nine rotation angles and nine phase angles, which can be measured or constrained in the precision neutrino oscillation experiments and by exploring possible signatures of Ni at the LHC and ILC. Two special but viable scenarios, the type-I seesaw model with two heavy Majorana neutrinos and the type-II seesaw model with one heavy Majorana neutrino and one Higgs triplet, are taken into account to illustrate the simplified V–R correlation. The implications of R≠0 on the low-energy neutrino phenomenology are also discussed. In particular, we demonstrate that the non-unitarity of V is possible to give rise to an appreciable CP-violating asymmetry between νμ→ντ and ν¯μ→ν¯τ oscillations with short or medium baselines.