de Salas, P. F., Gariazzo, S., Mena, O., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2018). Neutrino Mass Ordering From Oscillations and Beyond: 2018 Status and Future Prospects. Front. Astron. Space Sci., 5, 36–50pp.
Abstract: The ordering of the neutrino masses is a crucial input for a deep understanding of flavor physics, and its determination may provide the key to establish the relationship among the lepton masses and mixings and their analogous properties in the quark sector. The extraction of the neutrino mass ordering is a data-driven field expected to evolve very rapidly in the next decade. In this review, we both analyse the present status and describe the physics of subsequent prospects. Firstly, the different current available tools to measure the neutrino mass ordering are described. Namely, reactor, long-baseline (accelerator and atmospheric) neutrino beams, laboratory searches for beta and neutrinoless double beta decays and observations of the cosmic background radiation and the large scale structure of the universe are carefully reviewed. Secondly, the results from an up-to-date comprehensive global fit are reported: the Bayesian analysis to the 2018 publicly available oscillation and cosmological data sets provides strong evidence for the normal neutrino mass ordering vs. the inverted scenario, with a significance of 3.5 standard deviations. This preference for the normal neutrino mass ordering is mostly due to neutrino oscillation measurements. Finally, we shall also emphasize the future perspectives for unveiling the neutrinomass ordering. In this regard, apart from describing the expectations from the aforementioned probes, we also focus on those arising from alternative and novel methods, as 21 cm cosmology, core-collapse supernova neutrinos and the direct detection of relic neutrinos.
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Bonilla, C., Romao, J. C., & Valle, J. W. F. (2016). Electroweak breaking and neutrino mass: `invisible' Higgs decays at the LHC (type II seesaw). New J. Phys., 18, 033033–21pp.
Abstract: Neutrino mass generation through the Higgs mechanism not only suggests the need to reconsider the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking from a new perspective, but also provides a new theoretically consistent and experimentally viable paradigm. We illustrate this by describing the main features of the electroweak symmetry breaking sector of the simplest type-II seesaw model with spontaneous breaking of lepton number. After reviewing the relevant `theoretical' and astrophysical restrictions on the Higgs sector, we perform an analysis of the sensitivities of Higgs Boson searches at the ongoing ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC, including not only the new contributions to the decay channels present in the standard model (SM) but also genuinely non-SM Higgs Boson decays, such as `invisible' Higgs Boson decays to majorons. We find sensitivities that are likely to be reached at the upcoming run of the experiments.
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Bonilla, C., Ma, E., Peinado, E., & Valle, J. W. F. (2016). Two-loop Dirac neutrino mass and WIMP dark matter. Phys. Lett. B, 762, 214–218.
Abstract: We propose a “scotogenic” mechanism relating small neutrino mass and cosmological dark matter. Neutrinos are Dirac fermions with masses arising only in two-loop order through the sector responsible for dark matter. Two triality symmetries ensure both dark matter stability and strict lepton number conservation at higher orders. A global spontaneously broken U(1) symmetry leads to a physical Diraconthat induces invisible Higgs decays which add up to the Higgs to dark matter mode. This enhances sensitivities to spin-independent WIMP dark matter search below m(h)/2.
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Bonilla, C., Lamprea, J. M., Peinado, E., & Valle, J. W. F. (2018). Flavour-symmetric type-II Dirac neutrino seesaw mechanism. Phys. Lett. B, 779, 257–261.
Abstract: We propose a Standard Model extension with underlying A(4) flavour symmetry where small Dirac neutrino masses arise from a Type-II seesaw mechanism. The model predicts the “golden” flavour-dependent bottom-tau mass relation, requires an inverted neutrino mass ordering and non-maximal atmospheric mixing angle. Using the latest neutrino oscillation global fit[ 1] we derive restrictions on the oscillation parameters, such as a correlation between delta(CP) and m(nu lightest).
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de Salas, P. F., Pastor, S., Ternes, C. A., Thakore, T., & Tortola, M. (2019). Constraining the invisible neutrino decay with KM3NeT-ORCA. Phys. Lett. B, 789, 472–479.
Abstract: Several theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model consider that neutrinos can decay. In this work we assume that the standard mechanism of neutrino oscillations is altered by the decay of the heaviest neutrino mass state into a sterile neutrino and, depending on the model, a scalar or a Majoron. We study the sensitivity of the forthcoming KM3NeT-ORCA experiment to this scenario and find that it could improve the current bounds coming from oscillation experiments, where three-neutrino oscillations have been considered, by roughly two orders of magnitude. We also study how the presence of this neutrino decay can affect the determination of the atmospheric oscillation parameters sin(2) theta(23) and Delta m(31)(2), as well as the sensitivity to the neutrino mass ordering.
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