$N_{\textrm{eff}}$ Constraint on Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Fong, Chee Sheng, Porto, Yago
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Fong, Chee Sheng
Porto, Yago
author_facet Fong, Chee Sheng
Porto, Yago
contents After the electroweak symmetry breaking, we can write down two types of mass for the Standard Model neutrinos, Dirac or Majorana. It is often said that both types of mass cannot be distinguished in neutrino oscillation phenomena. This is in fact not true if neutrinos are pseudo-Dirac (strictly speaking still Majorana) where they mix almost maximally with sterile neutrinos to form pseudo-Dirac pairs. If this is indeed realized in Nature, what we observe experimentally as three mass eigenstates are actually three pairs of mass eigenstates with yet-to-be-measured new mass splitting among each pair. While the new mass squared splitting of the first and second mass eigenstates have stringent constraints from solar neutrino to be $|δm_{1,2}^2| \lesssim10^{-11}\,\textrm{eV}^{2}$, the one regarding the third mass eigenstate has a weaker constraint $|δm_3^2| \lesssim10^{-5}\,\textrm{eV}^{2}$. By keeping only one nonzero pseudo-Dirac mass squared splitting at a time, we derive an effective 3+1 description for the pseudo-Dirac scenario. Then we use the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) constraint on neutrino relativistic degrees of freedom $N_{\textrm{eff}}$ to derive a new constraint $|δm_3^2| < 2 \times 10^{-6}\,{\rm eV}^2$ and show that the future CMB-S4 and CMB-HD can improve this bound by an order of magnitude.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_19782
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle $N_{\textrm{eff}}$ Constraint on Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos
Fong, Chee Sheng
Porto, Yago
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
After the electroweak symmetry breaking, we can write down two types of mass for the Standard Model neutrinos, Dirac or Majorana. It is often said that both types of mass cannot be distinguished in neutrino oscillation phenomena. This is in fact not true if neutrinos are pseudo-Dirac (strictly speaking still Majorana) where they mix almost maximally with sterile neutrinos to form pseudo-Dirac pairs. If this is indeed realized in Nature, what we observe experimentally as three mass eigenstates are actually three pairs of mass eigenstates with yet-to-be-measured new mass splitting among each pair. While the new mass squared splitting of the first and second mass eigenstates have stringent constraints from solar neutrino to be $|δm_{1,2}^2| \lesssim10^{-11}\,\textrm{eV}^{2}$, the one regarding the third mass eigenstate has a weaker constraint $|δm_3^2| \lesssim10^{-5}\,\textrm{eV}^{2}$. By keeping only one nonzero pseudo-Dirac mass squared splitting at a time, we derive an effective 3+1 description for the pseudo-Dirac scenario. Then we use the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) constraint on neutrino relativistic degrees of freedom $N_{\textrm{eff}}$ to derive a new constraint $|δm_3^2| < 2 \times 10^{-6}\,{\rm eV}^2$ and show that the future CMB-S4 and CMB-HD can improve this bound by an order of magnitude.
title $N_{\textrm{eff}}$ Constraint on Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19782