Volume 7 Number 0402 ISSN 1979-3898

Journal of
Theoretical and Computational
Studies

Neutrino Mass
M. Satriawan
J. Theor. Comput. Stud. 7 (2008) 0402
Received: ; Accepted for publication:

Published by
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c 2008 GFTI & MKI ISSN 1979-3898
J. Theor. Comput. Stud. Volume 7 (2008) 0402

Neutrino Mass
M. Satriawan
Research Group on Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Department of Physics, Gadjah Mada University,
Bulaksumur Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia

Abstract : I present the possibility to have very small neutrino masses even if the neutrino is Dirac particles. The
very small mass of neutrinos is generated through the usual symmetry breaking of certain Higgs potential coupled with
a Yukawa terms that leads to a (type II) seesaw-like mechanism. The whole scenario is based on the old left-right
symmetry models, where the right weak current is suppressed due to a very high mass of the WR , together with a Higgs
potential employing one bidoublet and two left-right doublets.
Keywords : neutrino mass, seesaw mechanism, left-right symmetry
E-mail : mirza@ugm.ac.id

Received: ; Accepted for publication:

1 INTRODUCTION type of mass that the neutrinos have? Even though it

Since the positive result of the neutrino oscillation ex-
periment, it is almost certain that neutrino do have
masses and that they have large mixing angles. But
neutrino oscillation experiment can not distinguish
whether the mass is of Dirac mass or Majorana mass.
The standard model, due to the non detection of the
right handed neutrino, only have a left weak cur-
rent and the neutrino was assumed to be massless
Weyl particles. When the possibility that the neu-
trino could have a very small non zero mass, it is
then natural if many physicist started to assume that
neutrino is a Majorana particle. Having a Majorana
mass, neutrino thus violates lepton number conser-
vation (though the smallness of the neutrino masses
make this violation is also small). To explain the
smallness of the neutrino masses, many model have
been proposed, and one of them is the seesaw mech-
anism. In seesaw mechanism neutrino gain a small
mass due to the existence of very heavy right handed
neutrinos (type-I see-saw mechanism, see for exam-
ple [1]) or due to the existence of a very heavy Higgs
triplet (type-II see-saw mechanism, see for example
[1]). In both model, it is assumed that the neutrino is
a Majorana particle. Somehow the possibility of hav-
ing a very small masses but with neutrino as (only) a
Dirac particle, through a kind of see-saw mechanism,
is not being considered.
Up to now we do not have any result from the ex-
periment that can make us conclude for certain the
is known that if the neutrino is a Majorana particle,
then we could have a neutrino-less double beta de-
cay. But due to the smallness of the neutrino masses,
the probability for this decay to occur (which is pro-
portional to the neutrino masses) is also very small.
The current negative result on the neutrino-less dou-
ble beta decay is not enough to exclude the possibil-
ity that neutrino is a Majorana particle. If it turns
out that neutrino is not a Majorana particle, then the
current seesaw mechanism model has to be revised or
rejected. There has to be some other mechanism that
can explain the smallness of the neutrino masses but
with the neutrino as a Dirac particle. Also at the same
time the mechanism should give explanation for a not
to small masses for the charged leptons. This paper
was intended toward that direction, and here we start
with the assumption that neutrinos are Dirac parti-
cles.
2 THE OLD LEFT-RIGHT SYMMETRY
MODEL
If neutrinos are Dirac particle then we have to have
their right handed counterpart. In compensate, there
has to be some mechanism to explain the non-
detection of these right handed neutrinos. There are
two explanations that have been proposed in the past
for this. First is by assuming that the right handed
neutrinos have a very large masses, thus it does not ex-
isted at the current energy level. Second is by assum-

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c 2008 GFTI & MKI 0402-1
2 Neutrino Mass

ing that the right handed weak current is suppressed
due to the very large right handed weak gauge bo-
son, WR ’s masses. Both explanations need some kind
of mechanism that gives different masses for the left
and right handed particles. Because we have assumed
that neutrinos are Dirac particles, then the first as-
sumption can not be used, neutrinos could not have
different left and right handed masses. Thus we use
the second assumption, which means we have to have
two different W ’s, the WL and the WR for the left
and right current respectively. As gauge particles, the
W ’s only gain masses through the symmetry breaking
mechanism. We are then led to the old left-right sym-
metry model, SU(2)L ×SU(2)R ×U(1)B−L , introduced
by Pati, Salam and Mohapatra (for reference on this
ole model you can see [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]). In this
model we have the leptons and quarks each comes as
left and right handed doublets,
(ν ) (u )
l
ψL/R = i q
, ψL/R = j
li L/R dj L/R
where i denotes the e, µ, τ and j = 1, 2, 3 is the quark
generation.
In order to gain masses for the fermions, we cannot
use the usual term mψ̄ψ because it is not invariant
under the gauge. Thus we need a Yukawa terms to
generate masses for the fermions. Thus we have to
introduce a bidoublet Higgs that transform under the
gauge as (2,2,0) (where the last term is the B − L
number) and the Yukawa term for generating fermion
masses, given by,
−g ψ̄L ΦψR + h.c. .
To give different masses for the WL and WR and to
break the gauge down to the U(1)EM , there has to
be at least two doublet Higgs ϕL and ϕR that trans-
form as (2,1,-1) and (1,2,-1) respectively (It is for a
certain reason that will be clear later, why we choose
the doublets to have B-L equal -1). The bidoublet
and the doublets, with their charge assignment, are
denoted as follows,
( Φ0 ) ( ϕ0 ) (ϕ0 )
Φ+
Φ= 1 2 , ϕL = L1 , ϕR =
Φ−
3
0
Φ4 ϕ−
L2 ϕ−
A Higgs potential is then being introduce to insti-
gate a symmetry breaking. First we will just put the
Higgs potential in its simpler form without interaction
between the bidoublet and the doublets,
V (Φ, ϕL , ϕR ) = −µ2 Tr|Φ|2 − µ2L |ϕL |2
−µ2R |ϕR |2 + λTr|Φ|4
+λL |ϕL |4 + λR |ϕR |4 .
For this to be really left-right symmetry, then µL =
µR and λL = λR . The bidoublet and the doublets
could have vacuum expectation values given by,
(a
0) (e) (f )
Φ= , ϕL = , ϕR = , (5)
0 d 0 0
where a, d, e, and f in general are complex numbers,
but we can choose it to be real. The absolute mini-
mum of the Higgs potential is attained if,
µ µL µ2
a=d= √ , e= √ , f=√ R , (6)
2λ 2ΛL 2ΛR
In this form, certainly the upper and lower part of
the √
fermion doublets will obtain the same mass m =
gµ/ 2λ. This could be the case for the (first gener-
ation) up-down quark, but it is not the case for the
leptons.
In order to give the right masses for the leptons
. (1) (especially the neutrino) we, some how has to make
a = 0, d ̸= 0 and generate the neutrino masses not
directly form the Yukawa term. We thus add the fol-
lowing term to the Higgs potential in (4)
ηϕ†L ΦϕR + h.c . (7)
Certainly, once we change the potential, the vacuum
expectation values in Eq. (6) is no longer valid. The
additional term will add the value of the potential.
For a certain range of the value of the parameters
in Eq. (4) the absolute minimum of the potential is
attained when a is vanishes but d remains not zero.
This could be understood as follows: the additional
(2) term will increase the potential, so when a ̸= 0 we have
a negative contribution from Eq. (4) but a positive
contribution from the additional term. But when a =
0 we have zero contributions from both. Thus there
is a certain range of parameters in which the second
case has lower absolute potential than the first case.
Thus we can have a = 0 and d ̸= 0. Moreover, now
this term together with the Yukawa term in Eq. (2)
will give the following effective term, if µ is very large,
ϕ†L ϕR
ηg ψ̄L ψR + h.c. . (8)
R1 , (3) µ2
R2
This effective terms, which is a kind of type II seesaw-
like mechanism, will give - upon the symmetry break-
ing - the following very small masses for the neutrinos
ef
ηg . (9)
µ2
To give different mass for the WL and WR we have
to make e ≪ f , but neither of both should be zero.
(4) Otherwise the neutrino masses will be zero. Without

0402-2
3 Neutrino Mass

additional term in the Higgs potential, we always get
e = f . Let’s add the following term
ζ|ϕL |2 |ϕR |2 . (10)
This term will increase the Higgs potential, thus sim-
ilar to the previous addition, there will be a certain
mass if we want to have asymmetric mass for the WL
and WR are resolved by choosing the solution where
both the asymmetric and the symmetric VEV of the
doublets occur. The extension to the case of quark
masses is also possible.
JTCS

range of the value of the Higgs potential parameters in

which the solution will have absolute minimum when REFERENCES
one of the doublet has vanishing vacuum expectation
value (VEV). Unfortunately it is not possible, either [1] M. Fukugita and T. Yanagida, Physics of Neutri-
by this addition or any modification of the Higgs po- nos, Springer (2003).
tential, to make asymmetric VEV for doublets with- [2] J. C. Pati and A. Salam, Phys. Rev. D10 (1974)
out one of them being zero. 275.
But there is a certain value of the Higgs poten- [3] R. N. Mohapatra and J. C. Pati, Phys. Rev. D11
tial parameters, in which both the symmetric and the (1975) 566.
asymmetric VEV of the doublets lead to the same [4] R. N. Mohapatra and J. C. Pati, Phys. Rev. D11
minimum value of the potential. I will assume that (1975) 2558.
this is the case, where the doublets has two possible [5] G. Senjanovic and R. N. Mohapatra, Phys. Rev.
VEV’s, that is either, D12 (1975) 1502.
(0) (f ) [6] R. N. Mohapatra, F. E. Paige and D. P. Sidhu,
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0 0
[7] G. Senjanovic, Nucl. Phys. B153 (1979) 334.
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(f ) (f ) (2000) 336.
ϕL = , ϕR = . (12)
0 0

The first one will be used to break the left and right
symmetry, and give different mass for the WL and WR ,
while the second one will be used to generate neutrino
masses through the above mechanism. I would not
go into details about how the W ’s can obtain their
masses, because this has been covered in many papers
about left-right symmetry model.
Lastly, the same above mechanism can be used also
to explain the quark masses, only this time we may
need the case when the Φ has the following VEV,
(a 0)
Φ= . (13)
0 d

where additional term similar like in (7) will make a ̸=

d. A seesaw-like mechanism also could take place to
give differences in masses for the up and down sector
of the quark masses.

3 CONCLUSION

I have elaborate the possibility to explain a very small

mass for the neutrino, but with the neutrino as just
a Dirac particle. In the same time, the mass of the
charged lepton is not very small. The mechanism is
based on an old model, the left-right symmetry model,
but with slightly different Higgs sector and potential.
A possible problem of having a vanishing neutrino

0402-3