We propose an A_4 flavor-symmetric SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) seesaw model where lepton number is broken spontaneously. A consistent two-zero texture pattern of neutrino masses and mixing emerges from the interplay of type-I and type-II seesaw contributions, with important phenomenological predictions. We show that, if the Majoron becomes massive, such seesaw scenario provides a viable candidate for decaying dark matter, consistent with cosmic microwave background lifetime constraints that follow from current WMAP observations. We also calculate the sub-leading one-loop-induced decay into photons which leads to a mono-energetic emission line that may be observed in future X-ray missions such as Xenia.
We show that the late-decaying particle scenario may be realized in the supersymmetric singlet majoron model with the majoron scale $10-200$ TeV. The smajoron decaying into two neutrinos is the late-decaying particle with the mass $0.1-1$ TeV and the life-time $2\times10^3-8\times10^4$ seconds. The lower limit of the majorino mass is $4-40$ TeV in order to avoid the overclosure of the universe due to the decay-produced LSP. The muon neutrino and the tau neutrino can be used to explain the atmospheric and the solar neutrino deficit.
We explore the scalar phenomenology of a model of electroweak scale neutrinos that incorporates the presence of a lepton number violating singlet scalar. An analysis of the pseudoscalar-Majoron field associated to this singlet field is carried out in order to verify the viability of the model and to restrict its parameter space. In particular we study the Majoron decay $J \to νν$ and use the bounds on the Majoron mass and width obtained in a modified Majoron Decaying Dark Matter scenario.
An attractive way to generate neutrino masses as required to account for current neutrino oscillation data involves the spontaneous breaking of lepton number. The resulting majoron may pick up a mass due to gravity. If its mass lies in the kilovolt scale, the majoron can play the role of late-decaying Dark Matter (LDDM), decaying mainly to neutrinos. In general the majoron has also a sub-dominant decay to two photons leading to a mono-energetic emission line which can be used as a test of the LDDM scenario. We compare expected photon emission rates with observations in order to obtain model in…
We consider the collider phenomenology of a singlet Majoron model with softly broken lepton number. Lepton number is spontaneously broken when the real part of a new singlet scalar develops vacuum expectation value. With the additional soft terms violating lepton numbers, the imaginary part of this singlet scalar becomes a massive pseudo-Majoron which can account for the dark matter. In presence of the coupling of the pseudo-Majoron with the Standard Model (SM) Higgs, the SM Higgs mostly decays into a pair of pseudo-Majorons, giving rise to missing transverse energy signals at a hadron collide…
We present singlet-Majoron couplings to Standard Model particles through two loops at leading order in the seesaw expansion, including couplings to gauge bosons as well as flavor-changing quark interactions. We discuss and compare the relevant phenomenological constraints on Majoron production as well as decaying Majoron dark matter. A comparison with standard seesaw observables in low-scale settings highlights the importance of searches for lepton-flavor-violating two-body decays $\ell \to \ell' +$Majoron in both the muon and tau sectors.
We consider the scenario of large scale structure formation with tau neutrino with mass in the MeV range and lifetime of order of years which decays into a massive majoron with KeV mass. The latter are the present-day cold dark matter particles. In contrast to the usual collisionless dark matter, the majorons have a relatively strong self-interaction and the picture of structure formation is rather different from the standard. The decay $J \ra γγ$ leads to the existence of an X-ray line at $E_γ= m_J/2$ which could be detectable. Electron and muon neutrinos are expected to be very light, as req…
We derive strong contraints on the Yukawa couplings and the vacuum expectation value in the singlet majoron model, taking into account the possibility of a small gravitationally induced mass for the majoron. If the present baryon asymmetry was created earlier than at the electroweak phase transition, then to preserve it from the combined effects of lepton number violating interactions and electroweak sphalerons, we find that stringent constraints on the Yukawa couplings, $h < 10^{-7}$, and the majoron scale, $v_s < v_{EW}$, must be satisfied. We also carefully rederive baryogenesis bounds on n…
We explain excess events near the endpoints of the double beta decay spectra of several elements, using the neutrinoless emission of massless Goldstone bosons. Models with scalars carrying lepton number $-2$ are proposed for this purpose so that ordinary neutrinoless double beta decay is forbidden, and we can raise the scale of global symmetry breaking above the 10 keV scale needed for observable emission of conventional Majorons in double beta decay. The electron spectrum has a different shape, and the rate depends on different nuclear matrix elements, than for the emission of ordinary Majoro…
In the Majoron models the $SU(2)$ doublet Higgs can decay invisibly into a Majoron pair via its mixing with a singlet. An analysis of the LEP data shows the invisible decay mode to be more visible than the SM decay. For these models, the dominantly doublet Higgs $H$ is shown to have a mass limit within $\pm 6$ GeV of the SM limit irrespective of the model parameters. But the dominantly singlet one $S$ can be arbitrarily light for sufficiently small mixing angle.
Neutrino masses may arise from spontaneous breaking of ungauged lepton number. Due to quantum gravity effects the associated Goldstone boson - the majoron - will pick up a mass. We determine the lifetime and mass required by cosmic microwave background observations so that the massive majoron provides the observed dark matter of the Universe. The majoron DDM scenario fits nicely in models where neutrino masses arise a la seesaw, and may lead to other possible cosmological implications.
Majorons are the Goldstone bosons associated to lepton number and thus closely connected to Majorana neutrino masses. Couplings to charged fermions arise at one-loop level, including lepton-flavor-violating ones that lead to decays $\ell\to \ell' J$, whereas a coupling to photons is generated at two loops. The typically small couplings make massive majorons a prime candidate for long-lived dark matter. Its signature decay into two mono-energetic neutrinos is potentially detectable for majoron masses above MeV.
Neutrino masses, matter-antimatter asymmetry, dark matter, and supermassive black hole formation explained with Majorons
University of California Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校）；Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), UTIAS The University of Tokyo（东京大学宇宙物质起源研究教育中心（WPI））；Tsung-Dao Lee Institute & School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学物理与天文学院暨李政道研究所）
Majorons are the Goldstone bosons of spontaneously broken lepton number and hence intimately connected to Majorana neutrino masses. Since all majoron couplings are heavily suppressed by the seesaw scale they are interesting candidates for long-lived dark matter. The signature decay into two mono-energetic neutrinos is potentially detectable with neutrino detectors for majoron masses above MeV and complementary to the loop-induced decays into visible particles. The mass range between keV and MeV can only be probed indirectly with the majoron decay into two photons; keV-scale majorons can be war…
We revisit a singlet Majoron model in which neutrino masses arise from the spontaneous violation of lepton number. If the Majoron obtains a mass of order MeV, it can play the role of dark matter. We discuss constraints on the couplings of the massive Majoron with masses of order MeV to neutrinos from supernova data. In the dense supernova core, Majoron-emitting neutrino annihilations are allowed and can change the signal of a supernova. Based on the observation of SN1987A, we exclude a large range of couplings from the luminosity and the deleptonization arguments, taking the effect of the back…
We propose supersymmetric Majoron inflation in which the Majoron field $Φ$ responsible for generating right-handed neutrino masses may also be suitable for giving low scale "hilltop" inflation, with a discrete lepton number $Z_N$ spontaneously broken at the end of inflation, while avoiding the domain wall problem. In the framework of non-minimal supergravity, we show that a successful spectral index can result with small running together with small tensor modes. We show that a range of heaviest right-handed neutrino masses can be generated, $m_N\sim 10^1-10^{16}$ GeV, consistent with the const…
The recent tension between local and early measurements of the Hubble constant can be explained in a particle physics context. A mechanism is presented where this tension is alleviated due to the presence of a Majoron, arising from the spontaneous breaking of Lepton Number. The lightness of the active neutrinos is consistently explained. Moreover, this mechanism is shown to be embeddable in the Minimal (Lepton) Flavour Violating context, providing a correct description of fermion masses and mixings, and protecting the flavour sector from large deviations from the Standard Model predictions. A …
Neutrino masses arising from the spontaneous violation of ungauged lepton-number are accompanied by a physical Goldstone boson, generically called Majoron. In the high-density supernova medium the effects of Majoron-emitting neutrino decays are important even if they are suppressed in vacuo by small neutrino masses and/or small off-diagonal couplings. We reconsider the influence of these decays on the neutrino signal of supernovae in the light of recent Super-Kamiokande data on solar and atmospheric neutrinos. We find that majoron-neutrino coupling constants in the range $3\times 10^{-7}\lsim …
We study gravitational quantum mechanics violating (QMV) effects to masses of Nambu-Goldstone bosons, taking majoron as an example. We show a supersymmetric majoron has either mass of O(keV) for the dimension five potential or smaller mass for effective potentials with higher dimensions. We extend the Dashen's formula for pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons to include possible effects of QMV.
We consider theories in which the generation of neutrino masses is associated with the breaking of an approximate global lepton number symmetry. In such a scenario the spectrum of light states includes the Majoron, the pseudo-Nambu Goldstone boson associated with the breaking of the global symmetry. For a broad range of parameters, the Majoron decays to neutrinos at late times, after the cosmic neutrinos have decoupled from the thermal bath, resulting in a secondary contribution to the cosmic neutrino background. We determine the current bounds on this scenario, and explore the possibility of …
We show that in the presence of sufficiently strong tau neutrino annihilations into majorons, the primordial nucleosynthesis constraints can not rule out tau neutrino masses in the MeV range.
Majoron models provide neutrino masses via the spontaneous breaking of a global $U(1)$ symmetry. However, it may be argued that all global symmetries will be explicitly violated by gravitational effects. We show that it is possible to preserve most of the usual features of majoron models by invoking $U(1)_{B-L}$ to be a gauge symmetry and adding a second singlet scalar field. The majoron gets a small model dependent mass. The couplings of majorons to neutrinos may be of ordinary strength or may be made arbitrarily weak. We discuss the cosmological and astrophysical consequences of majoron mode…
In lepton-number-violating supersymmetric models, there is no natural choice of basis to distinguish the down-type Higgs and lepton superfields. We employ basis-independent techniques to identify the massless majoron and associated light scalar in the case of spontaneously-broken lepton number (L). When explicit L-violation is added, these two scalars can acquire masses of order the electroweak scale and can be identified as massive sneutrinos.
The Higgs particle can decay dominantly into an invisible channel in the Majoron models. We have explored the prospect of detecting such a Higgs particle at LHC via its associated production with a gluon, Z or W boson. While the signal/background ratio is too small for the first process, the latter two provide viable signatures for detecting such a Higgs particle.
We analyse non-thermal leptogenesis after models of Majoron hilltop inflation, where the scalar field that provides masses for the right-handed neutrinos and sneutrinos via its vacuum expectation value acts as the inflaton. We discuss different realisations of Majoron inflation models with different hilltop shapes and couplings to the right-handed (s)neutrinos. To study the non-thermally produced baryon asymmetry in these models, we numerically solve the relevant Boltzmann equations. In contrast to previous studies, we include the effects from resonant sneutrino particle production during preh…
In models with large extra dimensions all gauge singlet fields can in principle propagate in the extra dimensional space. We have investigated possible constraints on majoron models of neutrino masses in which the majorons propagate in extra dimensions. It is found that astrophysical constraints from supernovae are many orders of magnitude stronger than previous accelerator bounds. Our findings suggest that unnatural types of the "see-saw" mechanism for neutrino masses are unlikely to occur in nature, even in the presence of extra dimensions.
A new economical model for neutrino masses is proposed in the context of brane bulk scenarios for particle physics, where global B-L symmetry of the standard model is broken spontaneously by a gauge singlet Higgs field in the bulk. This leads to a bulk majoron whose KK excitations may make it visible if neutrinoless double beta decay if the string scale is close to a TeV. It also leads to neutron-anti-neutron oscillation process with transition times which can be in the range accessible to proposed experiments.
The possibility that the accurately known value of the Z width might furnish information about the coupling of two neutrinos to the Majoron (Nambu-Goldstone boson of spontaneous lepton number violation) is proposed and investigated in detail. Both the "ordinary" case and the case in which one adopts a "brane" world picture with the Majoron free to travel in extra dimensions are studied. Bounds on the dimensionless coupling constants are obtained, allowing for any number of extra dimensions and any intrinsic mass scale. These bounds may be applied to a variety of different Majoron models. If a …
Neutrinos may acquire small Dirac or Majorana masses by new low-energy physics in terms of the chiral gravitational anomaly, as proposed by Dvali and Funcke (2016). This model predicts fast neutrino decays, $ν_i\toν_j+ϕ$ and $ν_i\to\barν_j+ϕ$, where the gravi-majorons $ϕ$ are pseudoscalar Nambu-Goldstone bosons. The final-state neutrino and antineutrino distributions differ depending on the Dirac or Majorana mass of the initial state. This opens a channel for distinguishing these cases, for example in the spectrum of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. In particular, we put bounds on the neut…
The Majoron Cosmological Window: Dark Matter and Thermal Leptogenesis
Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Department of Physics, Durham University（达勒姆大学粒子物理现象学研究所）；Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学理论物理研究所UAM/CSIC）；Institute for Astroparticle Physics (IAP), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)（卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院天体粒子物理研究所(IAP)）；Department of Physics, University of Basel（巴塞尔大学物理系）
The generation of neutrino masses by inverse seesaw mechanisms has advantages over other seesaw models since the potential new physics can be produced at the TeV scale. We propose a model that generates the inverse seesaw mechanism via spontaneous breaking of the lepton number, by extending the Standard Model with two scalar singlets and two fermion singlets both charged under lepton number. The model gives rise to a massless Majoron and a massive pseudoscalar which we dub as massive Majoron, which corresponds to the Nambu-Goldstone boson of the breaking of lepton number. If the massive Majoro…
We consider a very weakly interacting KeV majoron as dark matter particle (DMP), which provides both the critical density $ρ_{cr} = 1.88 \times 10^{-29} h^{2}$ $g/cm^{3}$ and the galactic scale $M_{gal}$ $\sim m^{3}_{Pl}/m^{2}_{J} \sim 10^{12} M_{\odot} (m_{J}/1 KeV)^{-2}$ for galaxy formation. The majoron couples to leptons only through some new "directly interacting particles", called DIPS, and this provides the required smallness of the coupling constants. If the masses of these DIPS are greater than the scale $V_s$ characterizing the spontaneous violation of the global lepton symmetry they…
We examine the cosmology of warm dark matter (WDM), both stable and decaying, from the point of view of structure formation. We compare the matter power spectrum associated to WDM masses of 1.5 keV and 0.158 keV, with that expected for the stable cold dark matter $Λ$CDM$\equiv$SCDM paradigm, taken as our reference model. We scrutinize the effects associated to the warm nature of dark matter, as well as the fact that it decays. The decaying warm dark matter (DWDM) scenario is well-motivated, emerging in a broad class of particle physics theories where neutrino masses arise from the spontaneous …
The tau neutrino with a mass of about 10 MeV can be the ``late decaying particle'' in the cold dark matter scenario for the formation of structure in the Universe. We show how this may be realized specifically in the recently proposed doublet Majoron model.
We study the 1-loop renormalization group equation running in the simplest singlet Majoron model constructed by us earlier to accommodate the dark radiation and dark matter content in the universe. A comprehensive numerical study was performed to explore the whole model parameter space. A smaller effective number of neutrinos $\triangle N_{eff}\sim 0.05$, or a Majoron decoupling temperature higher than the charm quark mass, is preferred. We found that a heavy scalar dark matter, $ρ$, of mass $1.5-4$ TeV is required by the stability of the scalar potential and an operational type-I see-saw mech…
Lepton number violation plays an essential role in many scenarios of neutrino mass generation and also provides new clues to search new physics beyond the standard model. We consider the neutrinophilic two-Higgs-doublet model ($ν$-2HDM) where additional right-handed neutral fermions $N_{Ri}$ and a complex singlet scalar $σ$ are also involved. In scalar sector, the global $U(1)_{L}$ symmetry is spontaneous broken, leading to Nambu-Goldstone boson, the Majoron $J$, accompanied by the Majorana neutrino mass generation. We find that the massless Majoron will induce large invisible Higgs decay, and…
We show that there is no one-loop enhancement of the rate for a light neutrino to decay into a lighter neutrino plus a majoron, contrary to a recent claim. Thus the light neutrinos must satisfy the cosmological bound of having masses less than 35 eV in the singlet majoron model, or else violate the constraint imposed by galaxy formation. In the latter case, $ν_τ$ could have a mass between 40 and 500 keV, while satisfying all other cosmological constraints.
How to Identify a Majoron: Effective Field Theories of Spontaneous Lepton Number Breaking
Università di Genova（热那亚大学）；INFN, Sezione di Genova（意大利国家核物理研究所热那亚分部）；Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学）；Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC（UAM/CSIC理论物理研究所）
The existence of right-handed neutrinos follows from theoretical consistence of the recently suggested electroweak symmetry breaking model, based on dynamical flavor gauge symmetry breaking. Only finite number of versions of the model exists. They differ by the number and the flavor structure of the right-handed neutrinos. We choose for inspection one of them, the non-minimal version with right-handed neutrinos in sextet flavor representation, and at some points we compare it with the minimal version. We show that a Majorana pairing of the sextet right-handed neutrinos is responsible for the f…
In a 331 model in which the lepton masses arise from a scalar sextet it is possible to break spontaneously a global symmetry implying in a pseudoscalar majoron-like Goldstone boson. This majoron does not mix with any other scalar fields and for this reason it does not couple, at the tree level, neither to the charged leptons nor to the quarks. Moreover, its interaction with neutrinos is diagonal. We also argue that there is a set of the parameters in which that the model can be consistent with the invisible Z^0-width and that heavy neutrinos can decay sufficiently rapid by majoron emission hav…
We propose a simple model of spontaneous lepton number violation with potentially large flavor violating decays, including the possibility that majoron emitting decays, such as $μ\to e \, J$, saturate the experimental bounds. In this model the majoron is a singlet-doublet admixture. It generates a type-I seesaw for neutrino masses and contains also a vector-like lepton. As a by-product, the model can explain the anomalous $(g-2)_μ$ in parts of its parameter space, where one expects that the branching ratio of the Higgs to muons is changed with respect to Standard Model expectations. However, t…
Models with spontaneously broken global lepton number can lead to a pseudo-Goldstone boson as a long-lived dark matter candidate. Here we revisit the case of singlet majoron dark matter and discuss multiple constraints. For masses above MeV, this model could lead to a detectable flux of monochromatic mass-eigenstate neutrinos, which have flavor ratios that depend strongly on the neutrino mass hierarchy. We provide a convenient parametrization for the loop-induced majoron couplings to charged fermions that allows us to discuss three-generation effects such as lepton flavor violation. These coup…
We determine the restrictions imposed by primordial nucleosynthesis upon a heavy tau neutrino, in the presence of nu-tau annihilations into Majorons, as expected in a wide class of particle physics models of neutrino mass. We determine the equivalent number of light neutrino species $N_{eq}$ as a function of nu-tau mass and the nu-tau-Majoron coupling $g$. We show that for theoretically plausible $g$ values $\gsim 10^{-4}$ present nucleosynthesis observations can not rule out nu-tau masses in the MeV range. Moreover, these models give $N_{eq} \leq 3$ in the nu-tau mass region 1-10 MeV, for ver…
We perform a careful study of the neutral scalar sector of a model which includes a singlet, a doublet, and a triplet scalar field under $SU(2)$. This model is motivated by neutrino physics, since it is simply the most general version of the seesaw model of neutrino mass generation through spontaneous violation of lepton number. The neutral Higgs sector contains three CP-even and one massive CP-odd Higgs boson $A$, in addition to the massless CP-odd majoron $J$. The weakly interacting majoron remains massless if the breaking of lepton number symmetry is purely spontaneous. We show that the mas…
We discuss some rare Z decay signatures associated with extensions of the Standard Model with spontaneous lepton number violation at the electroweak scale. We show that single-photon Z decays such as $Z \to γH$ and $Z \to γJ J$ where H is a CP-even Higgs boson and J denotes the associated CP-odd Majoron may occur with branching ratios accessible to LEP sensitivities, even though the corresponding neutrino masses can be very small, as required in order to explain the deficit of solar neutrinos.
Lepton number violation and its relation to neutrino masses is investigated in several versions of the $SU(3)_c\otimes SU(3)_L\otimes U(1)_x$ model. Spontaneous and explicit violation and conservation of the lepton number are considered. In one of the models (the so-called economical one), the lepton number is spontaneously violated and it is found that the would be Majoron is not present because it is gauged away, poviding in this way the longitudinal polarization component to a now massive gauge field.
General flavor changing interactions for a Goldstone boson (GB) to fermions due to a spontaneous global $U(1)_G$ symmetry breaking are discussed. This GB may be the Axion, solving the strong QCD CP problem, if there is a QCD anomaly for the $U(1)_G$ charge assignments for quarks. Or it may be the Majoron in models from lepton number violation in producing seesaw Majorana neutrino masses if the symmetry breaking scale is much higher than the electroweak scale. It may also, in principle, play the roles of Axion and Majoron simultaneously as far as providing solution for the strong CP problem and…
