From Dirac to Majorana: The cosmic neutrino background capture rate in the minimally extended Standard Model

Perez-Gonzalez, Yuber F.; Sen, Manibrata

doi:10.1103/physrevd.109.023022

From Dirac to Majorana: The cosmic neutrino background capture rate in the minimally extended Standard Model

Perez-Gonzalez, Yuber F.; Sen, Manibrata

Authors

Yuber Perez Gonzalez yuber.f.perez-gonzalez@durham.ac.uk
Post Doctoral Research Associate

Manibrata Sen

Abstract

We investigate the capture rate of the cosmic neutrino background on tritium within the Standard Model, extended to incorporate three right-handed singlet neutrinos with explicit lepton-number violation. We consider a scenario where the 6×6 neutrino mixing matrix factorizes into three independent 2×2 pairs and analyze the states produced from weak interactions just before neutrino decoupling. Taking into account the unrestricted Majorana mass scale associated with lepton number violation, spanning from the grand unification scale to Planck-suppressed values, we observe a gradual transition in the capture rate from a purely Majorana neutrino to a purely (pseudo) Dirac neutrino. We demonstrate that the capture rate is modified if the lightest active neutrino is relativistic, and this can be used to constrain the tiniest value of mass-squared difference ∼10−35 eV2, between the active-sterile pair, probed so far. Consequently, the cosmic neutrino capture rate could become a promising probe for discerning the underlying mechanism responsible for generating neutrino masses. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Citation

Perez-Gonzalez, Y. F., & Sen, M. (2024). From Dirac to Majorana: The cosmic neutrino background capture rate in the minimally extended Standard Model. Physical Review D, 109(2), Article 023022. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.109.023022

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jan 3, 2024
Online Publication Date	Jan 18, 2024
Publication Date	Jan 15, 2024
Deposit Date	Mar 20, 2024
Publicly Available Date	Mar 20, 2024
Journal	Physical Review D
Print ISSN	2470-0010
Electronic ISSN	2470-0029
Publisher	American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	109
Issue	2
Article Number	023022
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.109.023022
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2334085

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