Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay in Left-Right Symmetry with Universal Seesaw

Frank F. Deppisch,1, ∗ Chandan Hati,2, 3, † Sudhanwa Patra,4, ‡ Prativa Pritimita,4, § and Utpal Sarkar5, ¶
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
2
Physical Research Laboratory, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad 380009, India
3
Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Chandkheda, Ahmedabad 382424, India
4
Center of Excellence in Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences,
Siksha ’O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar 751030, India
5
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India
We discuss a class of left-right symmetric theories with a universal seesaw mechanism for fermion
masses and mixing and the implications for neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay where neutrino
masses are governed by natural type-II seesaw dominance. The scalar sector consists of left- and
right-handed Higgs doublets and triplets, while the conventional Higgs bidoublet is absent in this
scenario. We use the Higgs doublets to implement the left-right and the electroweak symmetry
breaking. On the other hand, the Higgs triplets with induced vacuum expectation values can give
Majorana masses to light and heavy neutrinos and mediate 0νββ decay. In the absence of the Dirac
mass terms for the neutrinos, this framework can naturally realize type-II seesaw dominance even if
the right-handed neutrinos have masses of a few TeV. We study the implications of this framework
in the context of 0νββ decay and gauge coupling unification.
arXiv:1701.02107v1 [hep-ph] 9 Jan 2017

I. INTRODUCTION metry at TeV scale offers a plethora of possibilities in

The neutrino oscillation experiments have established
that the neutrinos have nonzero masses. However, the
question regarding the fundamental nature of the neutri-
nos; whether they are Dirac [1] or Majorana [2], is yet
to be answered. From a theoretical point of view several
frameworks predict Majorana neutrinos, while the exper-
imental searches are still inconclusive in this regard. To
this end the detection of neutrinoless double beta (0νββ)
decay, which requires neutrinos to be Majorana particles
regardless of the underlying mechanism, plays the cru-
cial role in confirming the nature of the neutrinos. This
rare process, the conversion of two neutrons into two pro-
tons, two electrons and nothing else, if observed, would
pave a path towards the search for new physics beyond
the Standard Model (SM). Currently, the KamLAND-
Zen experiment [3] (using 136 Xe) claims the best limit
on the half-life T1/2 to be less than 1.07 × 1026 yr corre-
sponding to an upper bound on effective Majorana mass
meff . 0.06 − 0.17 eV, depending on the nuclear matrix
element calculation used.
Models naturally accommodating neutrino masses are
the need of the time and the left-right symmetric model
(LRSM) [4–9] is one of the most popular candidates
for this purpose. The right-handed neutrinos and mir-
ror gauge bosons present make it quintessential to ex-
plain the V − A nature of the weak interactions, tiny
but nonzero masses of neutrinos [10–14] and a lot more.
Moreover, the spontaneous breaking of the left-right sym-
collider phenomenology. The LHC gives a lower bound
on the right-handed charged gauge boson mass MWR of
O(3 TeV) [15], while the Kaon KL − KS mass difference
results in a lower bound on MWR of 2.5 TeV [16–19]1 .
Such a low scale WR gauge boson associated with right-
handed charged currents can give rise to new contribu-
tions to 0νββ decay and can be accessible at the LHC.
In this work we study a LRSM framework with vector-
like fermions realizing a universal seesaw mechanism for
fermion masses, except for the neutrinos. The scalar sec-
tor consists of left- and right-handed Higgs doublets and
triplets, while the conventional Higgs bidoublet is absent
in this scenario. We use the Higgs doublets to imple-
ment the left-right and the electroweak symmetry break-
ing. On the other hand the Higgs triplets with induced
vacuum expectation values give Majorana masses to the
light and heavy neutrinos in the absence of the Dirac
mass terms. Consequently, one can naturally realize a
type-II seesaw dominance in this framework even if the
right-handed neutrinos have masses around a few TeV.
We study its implications for the 0νββ decay as well as
the possibility of gauge coupling unification in this frame-
work.
The outline for the rest of this paper is as follows. In
section II we start with a brief overview of the model, fol-
lowed by discussions on the generation of fermion masses
via universal seesaw in section III, neutrino masses via
type-II seesaw dominance in section IV and the gauge
bosons in section V. In section VI, we discuss the model in
the context of gauge coupling unification. In section VII
we discuss the implications for 0νββ decay. Finally, in

∗ Electronic address: f.deppisch@ucl.ac.uk

† Electronic address: chandan@prl.res.in
‡ Electronic address: sudha.astro@gmail.com 1 Lower values of MWR in the range 1.9 − 2.5 TeV are allowed
§ Electronic address: pratibha.pritimita@gmail.com within TeV scale LRSMs with spontaneous D-parity break-
¶ Electronic address: utpal@phy.iitkgp.ernet.in ing [20–22].
 2

section VIII we summarize our results and conclude. Right symmetric scalar potential has the form
L = (Dµ HL )† Dµ HL + (Dµ HR )† Dµ HR
+ (Dµ ∆L )† Dµ ∆L + (Dµ ∆R )† Dµ ∆R
II. LEFT-RIGHT SYMMETRY WITH
− µ2H (|HL |2 + |HR |2 ) − λ |HL |4 + |HR |4


VECTOR-LIKE FERMIONS
+ µ2∆ (|∆L |2 + |∆R |2 ) − λ0 |∆L |4 + |∆R |4


The gauge group for LRSMs is SU (2)L × SU (2)R ×
− β1 |HL |2 |HR |2 − ρ1 (|∆L |2 |HR |2 + |∆R |2 |HL |2 )
U (1)B−L × SU (3)C . The usual fermion content of the
− ρ2 |∆L |2 |HL |2 + |∆R |2 |HR |2


model is
 
 
1
 
1 − ρ3 HL† ∆†L ∆L HL + HR † †
∆ R ∆ R HR
uL uR
QL = ≡ [2, 1, , 3], QR = ≡ [1, 2, , 3] ,
dL dR − µ HLT iσ2 ∆L HL + HR T


3 3 iσ2 ∆R HR + h.c. . (5)
   
νL νR
`L = ≡ [2, 1, −1, 1], `R = ≡ [1, 2, −1, 1] , After the Higgs doublets HR and HL acquire their VEVs,
eL eR
the Higgs triplets get induced VEVs,
(1)
2 2
µvL µvR
h∆L i ≡ uL = 2 , h∆R i ≡ uR = 2 . (6)
where the numbers in brackets correspond to the trans- Mδ 0 Mδ 0
L R
formations under SU (2)L ×SU (2)R ×U (1)B−L ×SU (3)C .
We also consider additional vector-like quarks and
charged leptons [23–25], III. FERMION MASSES VIA UNIVERSAL
SEESAW
UL,R ≡ [1, 1, 4/3, 3] , DL,R ≡ [1, 1, −2/3, 3] ,
EL,R ≡ [1, 1, −2, 3]. (2) As discussed earlier, in this scheme normal Dirac mass
terms for the SM fermions are not allowed due to the
We implement a scalar sector consisting of SU (2)L,R absence of a bidoublet Higgs scalar. However, in the
doublets and triplets, however the conventional scalar presence of vector-like copies of quark and charged lep-
bidoublet is absent. We use the Higgs doublets to imple- ton gauge isosinglets, the charged fermion mass matrices
ment the left-right and the electroweak symmetry break- can assume a seesaw structure. The Yukawa interaction
ing: HR ≡ (h0R , h− T Lagrangian in this model is given by
R ) ≡ [1, 2, −1, 1] breaks the left-right
symmetry, while HL ≡ (h0L , h− L)
T
≡ [2, 1, −1, 1] breaks L = − YUL H̃L q L UR + YUR H̃R q R UL + YDL HL q L DR
the electroweak symmetry once they acquire vacuum ex-
pectation values (VEVs), + YDR HR q R DL + YEL HL `L ER + YER HR `R EL
1

 vR   vL  + f `cL iτ2 ∆L `L + `cR iτ2 ∆R `R
√ √ 2
hHR i = 2 , hHL i = 2 . (3) − MU U U − MD DD − ME EE + h.c., (7)
0 0
where we suppress the flavor and color indices on the
Note that the present framework requires only doublet fields and couplings. H̃L,R denotes τ2 HL,R ∗
, where τ2 is
Higgs fields for spontaneous symmetry breaking. How- the usual second Pauli matrix. Note that there is an
ever, in the absence of a Higgs bidoublet, we use the ambiguity regarding the breaking of parity, which can
vector-like new fermions to generate correct charged either be broken spontaneously with the left-right sym-
fermion masses through a universal seesaw mechanism. metry at around the TeV scale or at a much higher scale
For the neutrinos we note that in the absence of a scalar independent of the left-right symmetry breaking. In the
bidoublet there is no Dirac mass term for light neutri- latter case, the Yukawa couplings corresponding to the
nos and without scalar triplets no Majorana masses are right-type and left-type Yukawa terms can be different
generated either. To remedy this fact we introduce addi- because of the renormalization group running below the
tional scalar triplets ∆L and ∆R , parity breaking scale, YXR 6= YXL . Thus, while writing the
√ ! Yukawa terms above we distinguish the left- and right-
+ ++
δL,R / 2 δL,R handed couplings explicitly with the subscripts L and R.
∆L,R = 0 +
√ , (4)
δL,R −δL,R / 2 After spontaneous symmetry breaking we can write the
mass matrices for the charged fermions as [24]
which transform as ∆L ≡ [3, 1, −2, 1] and ∆R ≡
   
0 YUL vL 0 YDL vL
[1, 3, −2, 1], respectively. They generate Majorana MuU = , MdD = ,
YUR vR MU YDR vR MD
masses for the light and heavy neutrinos although they  
are not essential in spontaneous symmetry breaking here. 0 YEL vL
MeE = R . (8)
In the presence of the Higgs triplets, the manifestly Left- YE vR ME
 3

hHR i hHL i hHR i hHL i hHR i hHL i

uR MU uL dR MD dL eR ME eL
ULU UR DLU DR ELU ER
L L L

hHL i hHL i hHR i hHR i

∆L ∆R

νL νL νR νR

UL

FIG. 1: Generation of fermion masses through universal seesaw and induced triplet VEVs.

The corresponding generation of fermion masses is dia- Thus the light and heavy neutrino masses are simply
grammatically depicted in Fig. 1. mν = f uL ∝ MN = f uR . A Dirac mass term is
Assuming all parameters to be real one can obtain the generated at the two-loop level via the one-loop W
mass eigenstates by rotating the mass matrices via left boson mixing θW (see the next section) and the ex-
and right orthogonal transformations OL,R . For exam- change of a charged lepton. It is of the order mD .
ple, up to leading order in YUL vL , the SM and heavy gL4
/(16π 2 )2 mτ mb mt /MW 2
R
≈ 0.1 eV for MWR ≈ 5 TeV.
vector partner up-quark masses are This is intriguingly of the order of the observed neutrino
masses; as long as the right-handed neutrinos are much
vL vR
q
mu ≈ YUL YUR , M̂U ≈ MU2 + (YUR vR )2 , (9) heavier than the left-handed neutrinos, the type-II seesaw
M̂U dominance is preserved and the induced mixing mD /MN
L,R is negligible. The mixing between charged gauge bosons
and the mixing angles θU in OL,R are determined as θW ≈ gL 2
/(16π 2 )mb mt /MW 2
is generated through the
R

vL,R MU exchange of bottom and top quarks, and their vector-like

L,R
tan(2θU ) ≈ 2YUL,R . (10) partners. This yields a very small mixing of the order
MU2 ± (YUR vR )2
θW ≈ 10−7 for TeV scale WR bosons.
The other fermion masses and mixing are obtained in An interesting situation arises if we assume uL , uR 
an analogous manner. Note that here we have neglected vL  vR . Then one can allow right-handed Majorana
the flavor structure of the Yukawa couplings YXL,R which neutrinos with masses below GeV which can play an im-
will determine the observed quark and charged lepton portant role in 0νββ decay. Incorporating three fermion
mixings. The hierarchy of SM fermion masses can be generations leads to the mixing matrices for the left- and
explained by assuming either a hierarchical structure of right-handed matrices which we take to be equal
the Yukawa couplings or a hierarchical structure of the
vector-like fermion masses.
VN = Vν ≡ U , (12)
IV. NEUTRINO MASSES AND TYPE II
SEESAW DOMINANCE where U is the phenomenological PMSN mixing matrix.
Thus the unmeasured mixing matrix for the right-handed
In the model under consideration there is no tree level neutrinos is fully determined by the left-handed counter-
Dirac mass term for the neutrinos due to the absence of part. The present framework gives a natural realization
a Higgs bidoublet. The scalar triplets acquire induced of type-II seesaw providing a direct relation between light
VEVs h∆L i = uL and h∆R i = uR giving the neutral and heavy neutrinos, Mi ∝ mi , i.e. the heavy neutrino
lepton mass matrix in the basis (νL , νR ) given by masses Mi can be expressed in terms of the light neu-
  trino masses mi as Mi = mi (M3 /m3 ), for a normal and
f uL 0 Mi = mi (M2 /m2 ) for a inverse hierarchy of light and
Mν = . (11)
0 f uR heavy neutrino masses.
 4

V. GAUGE BOSONS 100

U(1)
BL

As discussed in the previous section, we consider a sce- 80

nario where the VEVs of the Higgs doublets are much U(1)Y
60
larger than the VEVs of the Higgs triplets i.e, uL 

α -1
vL , uR  vR . Thus, the masses for the gauge bosons get 40 SU(2)L=S
U(2)R
small corrections from scalar triplets. The mass matrix SU(2)L

for charged gauge bosons is given by 20 )C

SU(3 SU(3
)C
5
 2 2

2 1 gL vL + 2u2L 0
MW = 2 2

, (13)
4 0 gR vR + 2u2R
1.5 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
with the gauge couplings gL and gR associated with Log10 [μ/GeV]
SU (2)L and SU (2)R , respectively. The tree-level mix-
ing between charged gauge bosons WL and WR is zero FIG. 2: Gauge coupling running and unification in the model
due to absence of a scalar bidoublet. The physical masses considered with MGUT = 1015.75 GeV and the left-right sym-
for charged gauge bosons are thus easily found, metry breaking scale MR = 8 TeV.

2 2
2 gL gR
MW ≈ v2 , 2
MW ≈ (v 2 + 2u2R ) , (14)
1
4 L 2
4 R The SO(10) group breaks down to LRSM group G2213P ≡
SU (2)L ×SU (2)R ×U (1)B−L ×SU (3) via a non-zero VEV
where we neglect uL . At the one-loop level, a mixing
2 of Σ ⊂ 210H [26–28]. The particle content of the frame-
of the order θW ≈ gL /(16π 2 )mb mt /MW2
is generated
R
work has been discussed in Sec-2. For successful gauge
through the exchange of bottom and top quarks, and
coupling unification we need to additionally introduce a
their vector-like partners. This yields a very small mixing
scalar bitriplet η ≡ (3, 3, 0, 1) between the left-right sym-
of the order θW ≈ 10−7 for MWR ≈ 5 TeV.
metry breaking scale and the unification scale.
On the other hand, the neutral gauge boson mass ma-
trix is given by The one-loop renormalization group equations (RGEs)
  for gauge couplings gi is given by
2 2
1 gL vL 0 −gL gBL µ2L
MZ2 =  0 g 2 µ2 −gBL gR µ2  , ∂gi bi 3
4 −g g µ2 −g R gR µ2 g 2 µ2 + g 2 Rµ2 µ = g , (18)
BL L L BL R R R L BL R ∂µ 16π 2 i
(15)
where the one-loop beta-coefficients bi are given by
2
with µ2L,R = vL,R +4u2L,R and the gauge coupling gBL as-
sociated with U (1)B−L . The diagonalization gives mass 11 2 X Y
eigenvalues for the neutral gauge bosons, bi = − C2 (G) + T (Rf ) dj (Rf )
3 3
Rf j6=i
g2 2 g 2 + gR
2
1X
MZ2 1 ≈ L2 vL , MZ2 2 ≈ BL 2
(vR + 4u2R ) . (16)
Y
4cW 4 + T (Rs ) dj (Rs ) . (19)
3
Rs j6=i

VI. GAUGE COUPLING UNIFICATION
In this section we explore whether the LRSM frame-
work under consideration can be embedded in a non-
SUSY SO(10) GUT theory unifying the gauge couplings.
The possibility of achieving a gauge coupling unification
in the presence of vector-like particles in a LRSM frame-
work was studied in Ref. [24]. However, here the Higgs
sector and the vector-like fermion sector is different and
thus it is worthwhile to study the gauge coupling unifica-
tion in this framework. We consider a symmetry break-
ing pattern of SO(10) such that it has the LRSM gauge
group as its only intermediate symmetry breaking step
as follows
hΣi hHR i hHL i
SO(10) −→ G2213P −→ GSM −→ GU (1)Q ×SU (3) .
Here, C2 (G) is the quadratic Casimir invariant, T (Rf )
and T (Rs ) are the traces of the irreducible representation
Rf,s for a given fermion and scalar, respectively. d(Rf,s )
is the dimension of a given fermion/scalar representation
Rf,s under all SU (N ) gauge groups except the i-th gauge
group. For a real Higgs representation, one has to mul-
tiply an additional factor of 1/2. The derived one-loop
beta-coefficients using the particle content of the present
framework are found to be b2L = −19/6, bY = 41/10,
b3C = −7 from the SM to the LR breaking scale and
b2L = b2R = −13/6 + 2/3, bBL = 59/6 + 3/2 + 3/2,
b3C = −17/3 + 0 from the LR breaking scale to the GUT
scale. The unification of gauge couplings is displayed in
Fig. 2 with the breaking scales
(17) MGUT = 1015.75 GeV, MR = 8 TeV. (20)
 5

VII. NEUTRINOLESS DOUBLE BETA DECAY 0νββ decay due to the standard mechanism via the ex-
change of light neutrinos is
As discussed earlier, there is no tree level Dirac neu- 3
1 X 2 mν
trino mass term connecting light and heavy neutrinos. ην = Uei mi = ee . (23)
Consequently, the mixing between light and heavy neu- me i=1 me
trinos is vanishing at this order. Also, the mixing be- Here, me is the electron mass and the effective 0νββ mass
tween the charged gauge bosons is vanishing at the tree is explicitly given by
level due to the absence of a scalar bidoublet.
mνee = c212 c213 m1 + s212 c213 m2 eiα + s213 m3 eiβ  ,
 
The charged current interaction in the mass basis for (24)
the leptons is given by with the sine and cosine of the oscillation angles θ12 and
θ13 , c12 = cos θ12 , etc. and the unconstrained Majorana
3
phases 0 ≤ α, β < 2π.
 
gL X µ gR µ
√ Uei `L γµ νi WL + `R γµ Ni WR + h.c. (21)
2 i=1 gL
Right-handed neutrinos The contribution to
0νββ decay arising from the purely right-handed cur-
The charged current interaction for leptons leads to 0νββ
rents via the exchange of right-handed neutrinos gener-
decay via the exchange of light and heavy neutrinos.
ally results in the lepton number violating dimensionless
There are additional contributions to 0νββ decay due
particle physics parameter
to doubly charged triplet scalar exchange. While the
left-handed triplet exchange is suppressed because of its  4  4 X3 2
gR MWL Uei Mi
small induced VEV, the right-handed triplet can con- ηN = m p . (25)
gL MWR |p| + Mi2
2
tribute sizeably to 0νββ decay. i=1

Before numerical estimation, let us point out the mass The virtual neutrino momentum |p| is of the order of the
relations between light and heavy neutrinos under nat- nuclear Fermi scale, p ≈ 100 MeV. mp is the proton mass
ural type-II seesaw dominance. For a hierarchical pat- and for the manifest LRSM case we have gL = gR , or else
tern of light neutrinos the mass eigenvalues are given as the new contributions are rescaled by the ratio between
m1 < m2  m3 . The lightest neutrino mass eigenvalue is these two couplings. We in general consider right-handed
m1 while the other mass eigenvalues are determined using neutrinos that can be either heavy or light compared to
the oscillation parameters as follows, m22 = m21 + ∆m2sol , nuclear Fermi scale.
m23 = m21 + ∆m2atm + ∆m2sol . On the other hand, for If the mass of the exchanged neutrino is much higher
the inverted hierarchical pattern of the light neutrino than its momentum, Mi  |p|, the propagator simplifies
masses m3  m1 ≈ m2 where m3 is the lightest mass as
eigenvalue while other mass eigenvalues are determined Mi 1
by m21 = m23 + ∆m2atm , m22 = m23 + ∆m2sol + ∆m2atm . The ≈− , (26)
p2 − Mi2 Mi
quasi-degenerate
p pattern of light neutrinos is m1 ≈ m2 ≈
m3  ∆m2atm . In any case, the heavy neutrino masses and the effective parameter for right-handed neutrino ex-
are directly proportional to the light neutrino masses. change yields
In the present analysis, we discuss 0νββ decay due  4  4 X 3 2
gR MW Uei
to exchange of light neutrinos via left-handed currents, ηN = mp ∝ ην (m−1
i ) , (27)
right-handed neutrinos via right-handed currents as well gL MWR i=1
M i

as a right-handed doubly charged scalar2 . The half-life

where in the expression for ην (m−1
i ) the individual neu-
for a given isotope for these contributions is given by
trino masses are replaced by their inverse values. Such a
0ν −1 contribution clearly becomes suppressed the smaller the
] = G01 |Mν ην |2 + |M0N ηN + MN η∆ )|2 , (22)


[T1/2 right-handed neutrino masses are.
On the other hand, if the mass of the neutrino is much
where G01 corresponds to the standard 0νββ phase space less than its typical momentum, Mi  |p|, the propaga-
factor, the Mi correspond to the nuclear matrix elements tor simplifies in the same way as for the light neutrino
for the different exchange processes and ηi are dimension- exchange,
less parameters determined below.
p
/ + Mi Mi
PR 2 PR ≈ 2 , (28)
p − Mi
2 p
Light neutrinos The lepton number violating di-
because both currents are right-handed. As a result, the
mensionless particle physics parameter derived from
0νββ decay contribution leads to the dimensionless pa-
rameter
 4  4 X 3
mp gR MW 2
2 A detailed discussion of 0νββ decay within LRSMs can be found ηN = 2 Uei Mi ∝ η ν . (29)
|p| gL MWR i=1
e.g. in Refs. [9, 25, 29–37].

Isotope G01 (yr−1 ) Mν MN
76
Ge 5.77 × 10−15 2.58–6.64 233–412
136
Xe 3.56 × 10−14 1.57–3.85 164–172
TABLE I: Phase space factor G01 and ranges of nuclear ma-
trix elements for light and heavy neutrino exchange for the
isotopes 76 Ge and 136 Xe [38].
This is proportional to the standard parameter ην but in
the case of very light right-handed neutrinos, e.g. Mi ≈
mi , the contribution becomes negligible because of the
strong suppression with the heavy right-handed W boson
mass.
In general, we consider right-handed neutrinos both
lighter and heavier than 100 MeV and use (25) to cal-
culate the contribution. In addition, the relevant nu-
clear matrix element changes; for Mi  100 MeV it ap-
proaches M0N → MN whereas for Mi  100 MeV it
approaches M0N → Mν . For intermediate values, we use
a simple smooth interpolation scheme within the regime
10 MeV – 1 GeV, which yields a sufficient accuracy for
our purposes.
Right-handed triplet scalar Finally, the exchange
of a doubly charged right-handed triplet scalar gives
 4  3
4 X
mp gR MW 2
η∆ = 2 Uei Mi ∝ η ν .
Mδ−− gL MWR i=1
R
This expression is also proportional to the standard ην
because the relevant coupling of the triplet scalar is pro-
portional to the right-handed neutrino mass.
Numerical estimate In the following, we numer-
ically estimate the half-life for 0νββ decay of the iso-
tope 136 Xe as shown in Fig.3. We use the current values
of masses and mixing parameters from neutrino oscilla-
tion data reported in the global fits taken from Ref. [39].
For the 0νββ phase space factors and nuclear matrix el-
ements we use the values given in Tab. I . In Fig. 3, we
show the dependence of the 0νββ decay half-life on the
lightest neutrino mass, i.e. m1 for normal and m3 for
inverse hierarchical neutrinos. The other model parame-
ters are fixed as
heaviest
gR = gL , MWR = Mδ−− ≈ 5 TeV , MN = 1 TeV .
R
(31)
The lower limit on lightest neutrino mass is derived to
be m< ≈ 0.9 meV, 0.01 meV for NH and IH pattern
of light neutrino masses respectively by saturating the
KamLAND-Zen experimental bound.
As for the experimental constraints, we use the current
0ν 136
best limits at 90% C.L., T1/2 ( Xe) > 1.07 × 1026 yr
0ν 76
and T1/2 ( Ge) > 2.1 × 1025 yr from KamLAND-Zen [3]
and the GERDA Phase I [40], respectively. Represen-
tative for the sensitivity of future 0νββ experiments, we
6
KATRIN
1030
Planck
1029 NH
1028 IH
12 @yrsD
1027
QD
T0Ν
KamLANDZen
1026
1025
1024 -5
10 10-4 0.001 0.01 0.1 1
mlightest @eVD
FIG. 3: 0νββ decay half-life as a function of the lightest neu-
trino mass in the case of normal hierarchical (NH) and inverse
hierarchical (IH) light neutrinos in red and green bands re-
spectively. The other parameters are fixed as MWR = 5 TeV,
Mδ−− ≈ 5 TeV and the heaviest right-handed neutrino
R
mass is 1 TeV. The gauge couplings are assumed universal,
gL = gR , and the intermediate values for the nuclear matrix
(30) elements are used, Mν = 4.5, MN = 270. The bound on the
sum of light neutrino masses from the KATRIN and Planck
experiments are represented as vertical lines. The bound from
KamLAND-Zen experiment is presented in horizontal line for
Xenon isotope. The bands arise due to 3σ range of neutrino
oscillation parameters and variation in the Majorana phases
from 0 − 2π.
use the expected reach of the planned nEXO experiment,
0ν 136
T1/2 ( Xe) ≈ 6.6 × 1027 yr [41]. As for the other exper-
imental probes on the neutrino mass scale, we use the
future sensitivity of the KATRIN experiment on the ef-
fective single β decay mass mβ ≈ 0.2 eV [42] and the
current limit on the sum of neutrino masses from cosmo-
logical observations, Σi mi . 0.7 eV [43].
For a better understand of the interplay between the
left- and right-handed neutrino mass scales, we show in
Fig. 4 the 0νββ decay half-life as a function of the light-
est neutrino mass and the heaviest neutrino mass for a
normal (left) and inverse (right) neutrino mass hierar-
chy. The other model parameters are fixed, with right-
handed gauge boson and doubly-charged scalar masses
of 5 TeV. The oscillation parameters are at their best
fit values and the Majorana phases are always chosen to
yield the smallest rate at a given point, i.e. the longest
half life. The nuclear matrix employed are at the lower
end in Tab. I. This altogether yields the longest, i.e. most
pessimistic, prediction for the 0νββ decay half-life. The
red-shaded area is already excluded with a predicted half
life of 1026 yr or faster. As expected, this sets an upper
 7

104 104
1029
103 103 T 0
1/ ν
2<
10 28 10 2
6
2 2 yr
10 27
10
10 1027 1027
0ν
<1026 yr
M3 [GeV]

M2 [GeV]
T1/2 26
1026
10 10
10

1 0ν
T1/2 <1026 yr 1
0ν
T1/2 <1026 yr
0.1 0.1

1026 1026
10-2 28 1027 10-2 1027
1029 10

10-3 10-3
10-5 10 -4
10 -3
10 -2 0.1 1 10-5 10-4 10-3 10-2 0.1 1
m1 [eV] m3 [eV]
FIG. 4: Half-life of 0νββ decay in Xe as a function of the lightest and the heaviest neutrino mass for a normal (left) and
inverse (right) neutrino mass hierarchy. The contours denote the half-life in years. Best-fit oscillation data are used and the
Majorana phases are chosen to yield the longest half-life. Likewise, the smallest values of the nuclear matrix elements in Tab. I
are employed. The other model parameters are chosen as gR = gL and MWR = M∆ = 5 TeV.

limit on the lightest neutrino mass mlightest . 1 eV, but
it also puts stringent constraints on the mass scale of
the right-handed neutrinos. For an inverse hierarchy, the
range 50 MeV . M2 . 5 GeV is excluded whereas in
the normal hierarchy case, large M3 can be excluded if
there is a strong hierarchy, m1 → 0. This is due the large
contribution of the lightest heavy neutrino N1 in such a
case.
VIII. CONCLUSION
heavy neutrinos. The Majorana nature of these neutrinos
leads to 0νββ decay and it is found that the right-handed
currents play an important role in discriminating between
the mass hierarchy as well as the absolute scale of light
neutrinos. We have also embedded the framework in a
non-supersymmetric SO(10) GUT and and found that
the gauge couplings unify at a scale 1015.75 GeV when
we introduce a scalar bitriplet at the left-right breaking
scale.
Acknowledgements

We have presented a Left-Right symmetric model with

additional vector-like fermions in order to simultane-
ously explain the charged fermion and Majorana neu-
trino masses. The quark and charged lepton masses and
mixing is realized via a universal seesaw mechanism. Al-
though spontaneous symmetry breaking is achieved with
two doublet Higgs fields with non-zero B − L charge, we
have introduced scalar triplets with small induced VEVs
such that they give Majorana masses to light as well as
PP is supported by the DST INSPIRE Fellowship
(No. DST/INSPIRE Fellowship/2014/IF140299) funded
by the Department of Science and Technology, India.
The work of SP is partially supported by the Depart-
ment of Science and Technology, Govt. of India under
the financial grant SB/S2/HEP-011/2013. The work of
US is supported partly by the JC Bose National Fellow-
ship grant under DST, India.

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