Neutrino masses and flavor mixing in a generalized inverse seesaw model with a universal two-zero texture

A generalized inverse seesaw model, in which the 9x9 neutrino mass matrix has vanishing (1,1) and (1,3) submatrices, is proposed. This is similar to the universal two-zero texture which gives vanishing (1,1) and (1,3) elements of the 3x3 mass matrices in both the charged lepton and neutrino sectors. We consider the Z_6 x Z_6 group to realize such texture zeros. We study this generalized inverse seesaw model systematically and derive the seesaw formula for the 3x3 mass matrix of three active neutrinos. We also analyze the universal two-zero texture in the general case and propose two ansatze to reduce the number of free parameters. Taking account of the new result of theta_{13} from the Daya Bay experiment, we constrain the parameter space of the universal two-zero texture in the general case and in the two ansatze, respectively. We find that one of the ansatze works well.

Enhanced Electromagnetic Transition Dipole Moments and Radiative Decays of Massive Neutrinos due to the Seesaw-induced Non-unitary Effects

In a simple extension of the standard electroweak theory where the phenomenon of lepton flavor mixing is described by a 3x3 unitary matrix V, the electric and magnetic dipole moments of three active neutrinos are suppressed not only by their tiny masses but also by the Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani (GIM) mechanism. We show that it is possible to lift the GIM suppression if the canonical seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation, which allows V to be slightly non-unitary, is taken into account. In view of current experimental constraints on the non-unitarity of V, we find that the effective electromagnetic transition dipole moments of three light Majorana neutrinos and the rates of their radiative decays can be maximally enhanced by a factor of O(10^2) and a factor of O(10^4), respectively. This important observation reveals an intrinsic and presumably significant correlation between the electromagnetic properties of massive neutrinos and the origin of their small masses.

The Kobayashi-Maskawa Parametrization of Lepton Flavor Mixing and Its Application to Neutrino Oscillations in Matter

We show that the Kobayashi-Maskawa (KM) parametrization of the 3 X 3 lepton flavor mixing matrix is a useful language to describe the phenomenology of neutrino oscillations. In particular, it provides us with a convenient way to link the genuine flavor mixing parameters (theta_1, theta_2, theta_3 and delta_KM) to their effective counterparts in matter (tilde{theta}_1, tilde{theta}_2, tilde{theta}_3 and tilde{delta}_KM). We rediscover the Toshev-like relation sin tilde{delta}_KM sin 2tilde{theta}_2 = sin delta_KM sin 2theta_2 in the KM parametrization. We make reasonable analytical approximations to the exact relations between the genuine and matter-corrected flavor mixing parameters in two different experimental scenarios: (a) the neutrino beam energy E is above O(1) GeV and (b) E is below O(1) GeV. As an example, the probability of u_mu -> u_e oscillations and CP-violating effects are calculated for the upcoming NOvA and Hyper-K experiments.

Non-Hermitian Perturbations to the Fritzsch Textures of Lepton and Quark Mass Matrices

We show that non-Hermitian and nearest-neighbor-interacting perturbations to the Fritzsch textures of lepton and quark mass matrices can make both of them fit current experimental data very well. In particular, we obtain theta_{23} simeq 45^circ for the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle and predict theta_{13} simeq 3^circ to 6^circ for the smallest neutrino mixing angle when the perturbations in the lepton sector are at the 20% level. The same level of perturbations is required in the quark sector, where the Jarlskog invariant of CP violation is about 3.7 times 10^{-5}. In comparison, the strength of leptonic CP violation is possible to reach about 1.5 times 10^{-2} in neutrino oscillations.

A Generic Diagonalization of the 3X3 Neutrino Mass Matrix and Its Implications on the mu-tau Flavor Symmetry and Maximal CP Violation

In the flavor basis where the mass eigenstates of three charged leptons are identified with their flavor eigenstates, one may diagonalize a 3 X 3 Majorana neutrino mass matrix M_nu by means of the standard parametrization of the 3 X 3 neutrino mixing matrix V. In this treatment the unphysical phases of M_nu have to be carefully factored out, unless a special phase convention for neutrino fields is chosen so as to simplify M_nu to M_nu without any unphysical phases. We choose this special flavor basis and establish some exact analytical relations between the matrix elements of M_nu M_nu^dag and seven physical parameters --- three neutrino masses (m_1, m_2, m_3), three flavor mixing angles (theta_12, theta_13, theta_23) and the Dirac CP-violating phase (delta). Such results allow us to derive the conditions for the mu-tau flavor symmetry with theta_23 = pi/4 and maximal CP violation with delta = +/- pi/2, which should be useful for discussing specific neutrino mass models. In particular, we show that theta_23 = pi/4 and delta = +/- pi/2 keep unchanged when constant matter effects are taken into account for a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment.