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Agarwalla, S. K., Huber, P., Tang, J. A., & Winter, W. (2011). Optimization of the Neutrino Factory, revisited. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 120–45pp.
Abstract: We perform the baseline and energy optimization of the Neutrino Factory including the latest simulation results on the magnetized iron detector (MIND). We also consider the impact of tau decays, generated by v(mu) -> v(tau) or v(e) -> v(tau) appearance, on the mass hierarchy, CP violation, and theta(13) discovery reaches, which we find to be negligible for the considered detector. For the baseline-energy optimization for small sin(2) 2 theta(13), we qualitatively recover the results with earlier simulations of the MIND detector. We find optimal baselines of about 2 500km to 5 000km for the CP violation measurement, where now values of E-mu as low as about 12 GeV may be possible. However, for large sin(2) 2 theta(13), we demonstrate that the lower threshold and the backgrounds reconstructed at lower energies allow in fact for muon energies as low as 5 GeV at considerably shorter baselines, such as FNAL-Homestake. This implies that with the latest MIND analysis, low-and high-energy versions of the Neutrino Factory are just two different versions of the same experiment optimized for different parts of the parameter space. Apart from a green-field study of the updated detector performance, we discuss specific implementations for the two-baseline Neutrino Factory, where the considered detector sites are taken to be currently discussed underground laboratories. We find that reasonable setups can be found for the Neutrino Factory source in Asia, Europe, and North America, and that a triangular-shaped storage ring is possible in all cases based on geometrical arguments only.
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Coloma, P., Donini, A., Lopez-Pavon, J., & Minakata, H. (2011). Non-standard interactions at a neutrino factory: correlations and CP violation. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 036–41pp.
Abstract: We explore the potential of several Neutrino Factory (NF) setups to constrain, discover and measure new physics effects due to Non-Standard Interactions (NSI) in propagation through Earth matter. We first study the impact of NSI in the measurement of theta(13): we find that these could be large due to strong correlations of theta(13) with NSI parameters in the golden channel, and the inclusion of a detector at the magic baseline is crucial in order to reduce them as much as possible. We present, then, the sensitivity of the considered NF setups to the NSI parameters, paying special attention to correlations arising between them and the standard oscillation parameters, when all NSI parameters are introduced at once. Off-diagonal NSI parameters could be tested down to the level of 10(-3), whereas the diagonal combinations (epsilon(ee) – epsilon(tau tau)) and (epsilon(mu mu) – epsilon(tau tau)) can be tested down to 10(-1) and 10(-2), respectively. The possibilities of observing CP violation in this context are also explored, by presenting a first scan of the CP discovery potential of the NF setups to the phases phi(e mu), phi(e tau) and delta. We study separately the case where CP violation comes only from non-standard sources, and the case where it is entangled with the standard source, delta. In case delta turns out to be CP conserving, the interesting possibility of observing CP violation for reasonably small values of the NSI parameters emerges.
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Forero, D. V., Morisi, S., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2011). Lepton flavor violation and non-unitary lepton mixing in low-scale type-I seesaw. J. High Energy Phys., 09(9), 142–18pp.
Abstract: Within low-scale seesaw mechanisms, such as the inverse and linear seesaw, one expects (i) potentially large lepton flavor violation (LFV) and (ii) sizeable non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI). We consider the interplay between the magnitude of non-unitarity effects in the lepton mixing matrix, and the constraints that follow from LFV searches in the laboratory. We find that NSI parameters can be sizeable, up to percent level in some cases, while LFV rates, such as that for μ-> e gamma, lie within current limits, including the recent one set by the MEG collaboration. As a result the upcoming long baseline neutrino experiments offer a window of opportunity for complementary LFV and weak universality tests.
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Aparici, A., Herrero-Garcia, J., Rius, N., & Santamaria, A. (2012). On the nature of the fourth generation neutrino and its implications. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 030–31pp.
Abstract: We consider the neutrino sector of a Standard Model with four generations. While the three light neutrinos can obtain their masses from a variety of mechanisms with or without new neutral fermions, fourth-generation neutrinos need at least one new relatively light right-handed neutrino. If lepton number is not conserved this neutrino must have a Majorana mass term whose size depends on the underlying mechanism for lepton number violation. Majorana masses for the fourth-generation neutrinos induce relative large two-loop contributions to the light neutrino masses which could be even larger than the cosmological bounds. This sets strong limits on the mass parameters and mixings of the fourth-generation neutrinos.
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Bonnet, F., Hirsch, M., Ota, T., & Winter, W. (2012). Systematic study of the d=5 Weinberg operator at one-loop order. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 153–23pp.
Abstract: We perform a systematic study of the d = 5 Weinberg operator at the one-loop level. We identify three different categories of neutrino mass generation: (1) finite irreducible diagrams; (2) finite extensions of the usual seesaw mechanisms at one-loop and (3) divergent loop realizations of the seesaws. All radiative one-loop neutrino mass models must fall in to one of these classes. Case (1) gives the leading contribution to neutrino mass naturally and a classic example of this class is the Zee model. We demonstrate that in order to prevent that a tree level contribution dominates in case (2), Majorana fermions running in the loop and an additional Z(2) symmetry are needed for a genuinely leading one-loop contribution. In the type-II loop extensions, the Yukawa coupling will be generated at one loop, whereas the type-I/III extensions can be interpreted as loop-induced inverse or linear seesaw mechanisms. For the divergent diagrams in category (3), the tree level contribution cannot be avoided and is in fact needed as counter term to absorb the divergence.
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del Aguila, F., Aparici, A., Bhattacharya, S., Santamaria, A., & Wudka, J. (2012). Effective Lagrangian approach to neutrinoless double beta decay and neutrino masses. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 146–37pp.
Abstract: 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 0 nu beta beta decay. We point out that, for each of the three chirality assignments, e(L)e(L), e(L)e(R) and e(R)e(R), there is only one LNV operator of the corresponding type to lowest order, and these have dimensions 5, 7 and 9, respectively. Neutrino masses are always induced by these extra operators but can be delayed to one or two loops, depending on the number of RH leptons entering in the operator. Then, the comparison of the 0 nu beta beta decay rate and neutrino masses should indicate the effective scenario at work, which confronted with the LHC searches should also eventually decide on the specific model elected by nature. We also list the SM additions generating these operators upon integration of the heavy modes, and discuss simple realistic examples of renormalizable theories for each case.
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Bonnet, F., Hirsch, M., Ota, T., & Winter, W. (2013). Systematic decomposition of the neutrinoless double beta decay operator. J. High Energy Phys., 03(3), 055–34pp.
Abstract: We discuss the systematic decomposition of the dimension nine neutrinoless double beta decay operator, focusing on mechanisms with potentially small contributions to neutrino mass, while being accessible at the LHC. We first provide a (d = 9 tree-level) complete list of diagrams for neutrinoless double beta decay. From this list one can easily recover all previously discussed contributions to the neutrinoless double beta decay process, such as the celebrated mass mechanism or “exotics”, such as contributions from left-right symmetric models, R-parity violating supersymmetry and leptoquarks. More interestingly, however, we identify a number of new possibilities which have not been discussed in the literature previously. Contact to earlier works based on a general Lorentz-invariant parametrisation of the neutrinoless double beta decay rate is made, which allows, in principle, to derive limits on all possible contributions. We furthermore discuss possible signals at the LHC for mediators leading to the short-range part of the amplitude with one specific example. The study of such contributions would gain particular importance if there were a tension between different measurements of neutrino mass such as coming from neutrinoless double beta decay and cosmology or single beta decay.
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Aristizabal Sierra, D., Degee, A., Dorame, L., & Hirsch, M. (2015). Systematic classification of two-loop realizations of the Weinberg operator. J. High Energy Phys., 03(3), 040–41pp.
Abstract: We systematically analyze the d = 5 Weinberg operator at 2-loop order. Using a diagrammatic approach, we identify two different interesting categories of neutrino mass models: (i) Genuine 2-loop models for which both, tree-level and 1-loop contributions, are guaranteed to be absent. And (ii) finite 2-loop diagrams, which correspond to the 1-loop generation of some particular vertex appearing in a given 1-loop neutrino mass model, thus being effectively 2-loop. From the large list of all possible 2-loop diagrams, the vast majority are infinite corrections to lower order neutrino mass models and only a moderately small number of diagrams fall into these two interesting classes. Moreover, all diagrams in class (i) are just variations of three basic diagrams, with examples discussed in the literature before. Similarly, we also show that class (ii) diagrams consists of only variations of these three plus two more basic diagrams. Finally, we show how our results can be consistently and readily used in order to construct two-loop neutrino mass models.
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Helo, J. C., Hirsch, M., Ota, T., & Pereira dos Santos, F. A. (2015). Double beta decay and neutrino mass models. J. High Energy Phys., 05(5), 092–40pp.
Abstract: Neutrinoless double beta decay allows to constrain lepton number violating extensions of the standard model. If neutrinos are Majorana particles, the mass mechanism will always contribute to the decay rate, however, it is not a priori guaranteed to be the dominant contribution in all models. Here, we discuss whether the mass mechanism dominates or not from the theory point of view. We classify all possible (scalar-mediated) short-range contributions to the decay rate according to the loop level, at which the corresponding models will generate Majorana neutrino masses, and discuss the expected relative size of the different contributions to the decay rate in each class. Our discussion is general for models based on the SM group but does not cover models with an extended gauge. We also work out the phenomenology of one concrete 2-loop model in which both, mass mechanism and short-range diagram, might lead to competitive contributions, in some detail.
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Helo, J. C., Hirsch, M., & Ota, T. (2016). Long-range contributions to double beta decay revisited. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 006–32pp.
Abstract: We discuss the systematic decomposition of all dimension-7 (d = 7) lepton number violating operators. These d = 7 operators produce momentum enhanced contributions to the long-range part of the 0 nu beta beta decay amplitude and thus are severely constrained by existing half-live limits. In our list of possible models one can find contributions to the long-range amplitude discussed previously in the literature, such as the left-right symmetric model or scalar leptoquarks, as well as some new models not considered before. The d = 7 operators generate Majorana neutrino mass terms either at tree-level, 1-loop or 2-loop level. We systematically compare constraints derived from the mass mechanism to those derived from the long-range 0 nu beta beta decay amplitude and classify our list of models accordingly. We also study one particular example decomposition, which produces neutrino masses at 2-loop level, can fit oscillation data and yields a large contribution to the long-range 0 nu beta beta decay amplitude, in some detail.
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