Abstract: Massive neutrinos demand to ask whether they are Dirac or Majorana particles. Majorana neutrinos are an irrefutable proof of physics beyond the Standard Model. Neutrinoless double electron capture is not a process but a virtual Delta L = 2 mixing between a parent (A)Z atom and a daughter (A)(Z – 2) excited atom with two electron holes. As a mixing between two neutral atoms and the observable signal in terms of emitted two-hole X-rays, the strategy, experimental signature and background are different from neutrinoless double beta decay. The mixing is resonantly enhanced for almost degeneracy and, under these conditions, there is no irreducible background from the standard two-neutrino channel. We reconstruct the natural time history of a nominally stable parent atom since its production either by nature or in the laboratory. After the time periods of atom oscillations and the decay of the short-lived daughter atom, at observable times the relevant 'stationary" states are the mixed metastable long-lived state and the non-orthogonal short-lived excited state, as well as the ground state of the daughter atom. We find that they have a natural population inversion which is most appropriate for exploiting the bosonic nature of the observed atomic transitions radiation. Among different observables of the atom Majorana mixing, we include the enhanced rate of stimulated X-ray emission from the long-lived metastable state by a high-intensity X-ray beam: a gain factor of 100 can be envisaged at current XFEL facilities. On the other hand, the historical population of the daughter atom ground state can be probed by exciting it with a current pulsed optical laser, showing the characteristic absorption lines: the whole population can be excited in a shorter time than typical pulse duration.

Abstract: We explore a common symmetrical origin for two long standing problems in particle physics: the strong CP and the fermion mass hierarchy problems. The Peccei-Quinn mechanism solves the former one with an anomalous global U(1)(PQ) symmetry. Here we investigate how this U(1)(PQ) could at the same time explain the fermion mass hierarchy. We work in the context of a four-Higgs-doublet model which explains all quark and charged fermion masses with natural, i.e. order 1, Yukawa couplings. Moreover, the axion of the model constitutes a viable dark matter candidate and neutrino masses are incorporated via the standard type-I seesaw mechanism. A simple extension of the model allows for Dirac neutrinos.

Abstract: 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-> 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)(mu), 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, the explanation of the muon g – 2 anomaly would lead to tension with recent astrophysical bounds on the majoron coupling to muons.

Abstract: Instanton solutions of non-abelian Yang-Mills theories generate an effective action that may induce lepton and baryon number violations, namely Delta B = Delta L = nf, being nf the number of families coupled to the gauge group. In this article we study instanton mediated processes in a SU( 2)(l)circle times SU(2)(h)circle times U(1) extension of the Standard Model that breaks universality by singularizing the third family. In the construction of the instanton Green functions we account systematically for the inter-family mixing. This allows us to use the experimental bounds on proton decay in order to constrain the gauge coupling of SU(2)(h). Tau lepton non-leptonic and radiative decays with Delta B = Delta L = 1 are also analysed.