Sterile neutrino

Sterile neutrinos (or inert neutrinos) are hypothetical particles (neutral leptons –
neutrinos) that are believed to interact only via gravity and not via any of the other
fundamental interactions of the Standard Model.[1] The term sterile neutrino is used
to distinguish them from the known active neutrinos in the Standard Model, which
1
carry an isospin charge of ±  2  under the weak interaction. It typically refers to
neutrinos with right-handed chirality (see right-handed neutrino), which may be
added to the Standard Model. Particles that possess the quantum numbers of
sterile neutrinos and masses great enough such that they do not interfere with the
current theory of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis are often called neutral heavy leptons
(NHLs) or heavy neutral leptons (HNLs).[2]
 Sterile neutrino, right-handed neutrino

Composition Elementary particle

Statistics Fermionic

Family lepton

Generation unknown

Interactions gravity; other potential unknown interactions

Status Hypothetical

Types unknown

Mass unknown

Electric charge 0

Color charge none

Spin 1⁄
2

Spin states 2

Weak isospin projection 0

Weak hypercharge 0

Chirality right handed

B−L depends on L charge assignment

X −5

The existence of right-handed neutrinos is theoretically well-motivated, because

the known active neutrinos are left-handed and all other known fermions have been
observed with both left and right chirality.[3] They could also explain in a natural
way the small active neutrino masses inferred from neutrino oscillation.[3] The
mass of the right-handed neutrinos themselves is unknown and could have any
value between 1015 GeV and less than 1 eV.[4] To comply with theories of
leptogenesis and dark matter, there must be at least 3 types of sterile neutrinos (if
they exist).[5] This is in contrast to the number of active neutrino types required to
ensure the electroweak interaction is free of anomalies, which must be exactly 3:
the number of charged leptons and quark generations.

The search for sterile neutrinos is an active area of particle physics. If they exist
and their mass is smaller than the energies of particles in the experiment, they can
be produced in the laboratory, either by mixing between active and sterile neutrinos
or in high energy particle collisions. If they are heavier, the only directly observable
consequence of their existence would be the observed active neutrino masses.
They may, however, be responsible for a number of unexplained phenomena in
physical cosmology and astrophysics, including dark matter, baryogenesis or
hypothetical dark radiation.[4] In May 2018, physicists of the MiniBooNE experiment
reported a stronger neutrino oscillation signal than expected, a possible hint of
sterile neutrinos.[6][7] However, results of the MicroBooNE experiment showed no
evidence of sterile neutrinos in October 2021.[8]

Motivation

Experimental results show that all produced and observed neutrinos have left-
handed helicities (spin antiparallel to momentum), and all antineutrinos have right-
handed helicities, within the margin of error.[3] In the massless limit, it means that
only one of two possible chiralities is observed for either particle. These are the
only helicities (and chiralities) allowed in the Standard Model of particle
interactions; particles with the contrary helicities are explicitly excluded from the
formulas.[9]

Recent experiments such as neutrino oscillation, however, have shown that

neutrinos have a non-zero mass, which is not predicted by the Standard Model and
suggests new, unknown physics.[10] This unexpected mass explains neutrinos with
right-handed helicity and antineutrinos with left-handed helicity: Since they do not
move at the speed of light, their helicity is not relativistic invariant (it is possible to
move faster than them and observe the opposite helicity).[11] Yet all neutrinos have
been observed with left-handed chirality, and all antineutrinos right-handed. (See
Chirality (physics)#Chirality and helicity for the difference.)

Chirality is a fundamental property of particles and is relativistically invariant: It is

the same regardless of the particle's speed and mass in every inertial reference
frame.[12] However, a particle with mass that starts out with left-handed chirality
can develop a right-handed component as it travels – unless it is massless,
chirality is not conserved during the propagation of a free particle through space.

The question, thus, remains: Do neutrinos and antineutrinos differ only in their
chirality? Or do exotic right-handed neutrinos and left-handed antineutrinos exist as
separate particles from the common left-handed neutrinos and right-handed
antineutrinos?

Properties

Such particles would belong to a singlet representation with respect to the strong
interaction and the weak interaction, having zero electric charge, zero weak
hypercharge, zero weak isospin, and, as with the other leptons, zero color charge,
although they are conventionally represented to have a B − L quantum number of
−1.[13] If the standard model is embedded in a hypothetical SO(10) grand unified
theory, they can be assigned an X charge of −5. The left-handed anti-neutrino has a
B − L of +1 and an X charge of +5.

Due to the lack of electric charge, hypercharge, and color charge, sterile neutrinos
would not interact electromagnetically, weakly, or strongly, making them extremely
difficult to detect. They have Yukawa interactions with ordinary leptons and Higgs
bosons, which via the Higgs mechanism leads to mixing with ordinary neutrinos.

In experiments involving energies larger than their mass, sterile neutrinos would
participate in all processes in which ordinary neutrinos take part, but with a
quantum mechanical probability that is suppressed by a small mixing angle. That
makes it possible to produce them in experiments, if they are light enough to be
within the reach of current particle accelerators.

They would also interact gravitationally due to their mass, and if they are heavy
enough, could explain cold dark matter or warm dark matter. In some grand
unification theories, such as SO(10), they also interact via gauge interactions which
are extremely suppressed at ordinary energies because their gauge boson is
extremely massive. They do not appear at all in some other GUTs, such as the
Georgi–Glashow model ( i.e., all its SU(5) charges or quantum numbers are zero).

Mass

All particles are initially massless under the Standard Model, since there are no
Dirac mass terms in the Standard Model's Lagrangian. The only mass terms are
generated by the Higgs mechanism, which produces non-zero Yukawa couplings
between the left-handed components of fermions, the Higgs field, and their right-
handed components. This occurs when the SU(2) doublet Higgs field acquires its
non-zero vacuum expectation value, , spontaneously breaking its SU(2)L × U(1)
symmetry, and thus yielding non-zero Yukawa couplings:

Such is the case for charged leptons, like the electron, but within the standard
model the right-handed neutrino does not exist. So absent the sterile right chiral
neutrinos to pair up with the left chiral neutrinos, even with Yukawa coupling the
active neutrinos remain massless. In other words, there are no mass-generating
terms for neutrinos under the Standard Model: For each generation, the model only
contains a left-handed neutrino and its antiparticle, a right-handed antineutrino,
each of which is produced in weak eigenstates during weak interactions; the
"sterile" neutrinos are omitted. (See neutrino masses in the Standard Model for a
detailed explanation.)
In the seesaw mechanism, the model is extended to include the missing right-
handed neutrinos and left-handed antineutrinos; one of the eigenvectors of the
neutrino mass matrix is then hypothesized to be remarkably heavier than the other.

A sterile (right-chiral) neutrino would have the same weak hypercharge, weak
isospin, and electric charge as its antiparticle, because all of these are zero and
hence are unaffected by sign reversal.[a]

Dirac and Majorana terms

Sterile neutrinos allow the introduction of a Dirac mass term as usual. This can
yield the observed neutrino mass, but it requires that the strength of the Yukawa
coupling be much weaker for the electron neutrino than the electron, without
explanation. Similar problems (although less severe) are observed in the quark
sector, where the top and bottom masses differ by a factor of 40.

Unlike for the left-handed neutrino, a Majorana mass term can be added for a
sterile neutrino without violating local symmetries (weak isospin and weak
hypercharge) since it has no weak charge. However, this would still violate total
lepton number.

It is possible to include both Dirac and Majorana terms: this is done in the seesaw
mechanism (below). In addition to satisfying the Majorana equation, if the neutrino
were also its own antiparticle, then it would be the first Majorana fermion. In that
case, it could annihilate with another neutrino, allowing neutrinoless double beta
decay.[14] The other case is that it is a Dirac fermion, which is not its own
antiparticle.

To put this in mathematical terms, we have to make use of the transformation

properties of particles. For free fields, a Majorana field is defined as an eigenstate
of charge conjugation. However, neutrinos interact only via the weak interactions,
which are not invariant under charge conjugation (C), so an interacting Majorana
neutrino cannot be an eigenstate of C. The generalized definition is: "a Majorana
neutrino field is an eigenstate of the CP transformation". Consequently, Majorana
and Dirac neutrinos would behave differently under CP transformations (actually
Lorentz and CPT transformations). Also, a massive Dirac neutrino would have
nonzero magnetic and electric dipole moments, whereas a Majorana neutrino
would not. However, the Majorana and Dirac neutrinos are different only if their rest
mass is not zero. For Dirac neutrinos, the dipole moments are proportional to mass
and would vanish for a massless particle. Both Majorana and Dirac mass terms
however can appear in the mass Lagrangian.

Seesaw mechanism

In addition to the left-handed neutrino, which couples to its family charged lepton in
weak charged currents, if there is also a right-handed sterile neutrino partner (a
weak isosinglet with zero charge) then it is possible to add a Majorana mass term
without violating electroweak symmetry.[15] Both neutrinos have mass and
handedness is no longer preserved (thus "left or right-handed neutrino" means that
the state is mostly left or right-handed). To get the neutrino mass eigenstates, we
have to diagonalize the general mass matrix :

where is big and is of intermediate size terms.

Apart from empirical evidence, there is also a theoretical justification for the
seesaw mechanism in various extensions to the Standard Model. Both Grand
Unification Theories (GUTs) and left-right symmetrical models predict the following
relation:

According to GUTs and left-right models, the right-handed neutrino is extremely

heavy: 105 to 1012 GeV, while the smaller eigenvalue is approximately
equal to[16]

This is the seesaw mechanism: as the sterile right-handed neutrino gets heavier,
the normal left-handed neutrino gets lighter. The left-handed neutrino is a mixture
of two Majorana neutrinos, and this mixing process is how sterile neutrino mass is
generated.

Sterile neutrinos as dark matter

For a particle to be considered a dark matter candidate, it must have non-zero

mass and no electromagnetic charge.[17] Naturally, neutrinos and neutrino-like
particles are a source of interest in the search for dark matter due to the
possession of these two properties. It is more common today that theories rely on
cold dark matter models (dark matter in the early universe is non-relativistic) as
opposed to hot dark matter models (dark matter in the early universe is relativistic).
Therefore, the active neutrinos of the Standard Model are not likely to account for
all dark matter due to their low mass.[18]

Since the mass of sterile neutrinos is not currently known, the possibility that it is
dark matter has not been ruled out. If dark matter consists of sterile neutrinos then
certain constraints can be applied to their properties. Firstly, the mass of the sterile
neutrino would need to be on the keV scale to produce the structure of the universe
observed today.[19] Secondly, while it is not required that the dark matter be stable,
the lifetime of the particles must be longer than the current age of the universe.
This places an upper bound on the strength of the mixing between sterile and
active neutrinos in the seesaw mechanism.[20] From what is known about the
particle thus far, the sterile neutrino is a promising dark matter candidate, but, as
with every other proposed dark matter particle, it has yet to be confirmed to exist.

Detection attempts
The production and decay of sterile neutrinos could happen through the mixing
with virtual ("off mass shell") neutrinos. There were several experiments set up to
discover or observe NHLs, for example the NuTeV (E815) experiment at Fermilab or
LEP-L3 at CERN. They all led to establishing limits to observation, rather than
actual observation of those particles. If they are indeed a constituent of dark
matter, sensitive X-ray detectors would be needed to observe the radiation emitted
by their decays.[21]

The interior of the MiniBooNE detector

at Fermilab. This detector was created
to measure the oscillation of
neutrinos.

Sterile neutrinos may mix with ordinary neutrinos via a Dirac mass after
electroweak symmetry breaking, in analogy to quarks and charged leptons.[22]
Sterile neutrinos and (in more-complicated models) ordinary neutrinos may also
have Majorana masses. In the type 1 seesaw mechanism both Dirac and Majorana
masses are used to drive ordinary neutrino masses down and make the sterile
neutrinos much heavier than the Standard Model's interacting neutrinos. In GUT
scale seesaw models the heavy neutrinos can be as heavy as the GUT scale
(≈1015 GeV).[23] In other models, such as the νMSM model where their masses are
in the keV to GeV range, they could be lighter than the weak gauge bosons W and
Z.[24] A light (with the mass ≈1 eV) sterile neutrino was suggested as a possible
explanation of the results of the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector experiment.
On 11 April 2007, researchers at the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab announced
that they had not found any evidence supporting the existence of such a sterile
neutrino.[25] More-recent results and analysis have provided some support for the
existence of the sterile neutrino.[26]

Two separate detectors near a nuclear reactor in France found 3% of anti-neutrinos

missing. They suggested the existence of a fourth neutrino with a mass of
1.2 eV.[27] Sterile neutrinos are also candidates for dark radiation. Daya Bay has
also searched for a light sterile neutrino and excluded some mass regions.[28]
Daya
Bay Collaboration measured the anti-neutrino energy spectrum, and found that anti-
neutrinos at an energy of around 5 MeV are in excess relative to theoretical
expectations. It also recorded 6% missing anti-neutrinos.[29] This could suggest
either that sterile neutrinos exist or that our understanding of some other aspect of
neutrinos is incomplete.

The number of neutrinos and the masses of the particles can have large-scale
effects that shape the appearance of the cosmic microwave background. The total
number of neutrino species, for instance, affects the rate at which the cosmos
expanded in its earliest epochs: More neutrinos means a faster expansion. The
Planck Satellite 2013 data release is compatible with the existence of a sterile
neutrino. The implied mass range is from 0–3 eV.[30] In 2016, scientists at the
IceCube Neutrino Observatory did not find any evidence for the sterile neutrino.[31]
However, in May 2018, physicists of the MiniBooNE experiment reported a stronger
neutrino oscillation signal than expected, a possible hint of sterile neutrinos.[6][7]
Since then, in October 2021, the MicroBooNE experiment's first results showed no
hints of sterile neutrinos, rather finding the results aligning with the standard
model's three neutrino flavours.[32] This result had not found an explanation for
MiniBooNE's anomalous results, however.

In June 2022, the BEST experiment released two paper observing a 20-24% deficit
in the production of the isotope germanium expected from the reaction 71Ga
71Ge, summing evidence for the so called "Gallium anomaly" pointing
that a sterile neutrino explanation can be consistent with the data.[33][34][35]
See also

List of hypothetical particles

MiniBooNE at Fermilab

Weakly Interacting Slender Particle

Footnotes

a. And as with all other particle / anti-particle pairs, the sterile right-chiral neutrino and left-chiral anti-
neutrino would also have identical, non-zero mass. Chirality, lepton-number, and flavor (if any) are the only
quantum numbers that distinguish a sterile neutrino from a sterile antineutrino. For any charged particle,
for example the electron, this is not the case: Its antiparticle, the positron, has opposite electric charge,
opposite weak isospin, and opposite chirality, among other opposite charges. Similarly, an up quark has a
charge of + 23 and, for example, a color charge of red, while its antiparticle has an electric charge of − 23 and
in this example a color charge of anti-red.

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External links

"Sterile Neutrinos" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160624023856/http://www.nu.to.infn.it/new/

Sterile_Neutrinos/) . Neutrino Unbound. Archived from the original (http://www.nu.to.infn.it/new/
Sterile_Neutrinos/) on 24 June 2016.

"The NuTeV experiment at Fermilab" (http://www-e815.fnal.gov/) . Fermi National Accelerator

Laboratory.

"The L3 Experiment at CERN" (http://l3.web.cern.ch/l3/) . CERN.

"Experiment nixes fourth neutrino" (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=E73C8DC4-E7F2-

99DF-3A9288CB19A810BB&chanId=sa026) . Scientific American. April 2007.