See-saw neutrino masses and large mixing angles in the vortex background on a sphere

TL;DR

This paper presents a model where neutrino masses and large mixing angles naturally emerge from a vortex background in a higher-dimensional setting, successfully fitting experimental neutrino oscillation data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel 6D vortex-based framework that explains neutrino masses and mixings via the see-saw mechanism, predicting specific mixing patterns and angles.

Findings

Predicts an inverted pseudo-Dirac neutrino mass pattern

Always predicts one maximal mixing angle in the neutrino sector

Fits all observed neutrino oscillation data with U_{e3} ~ 0.1

Abstract

In the vortex background on a sphere, a single 6-dimensional fermion family gives rise to 3 zero-modes in the 4-dimensional point of view, which may explain the replication of families in the Standard Model. Previously, it had been shown that realistic hierarchical mass and mixing patterns can be reproduced for the quarks and the charged leptons. Here, we show that the addition of a single heavy 6-dimensional field that is gauge singlet, unbound to the vortex, and embedded with a bulk Majorana mass enables to generate 4D Majorana masses for the light neutrinos through the see-saw mechanism. The scheme is very predictive. The hierarchical structure of the fermion zero-modes leads automatically to an inverted pseudo-Dirac mass pattern, and always predicts one maximal angle in the neutrino see-saw matrix. It is possible to obtain a second large mixing angle from either the charged lepton or the neutrino sector, and we demonstrate that this model can fit all observed data in neutrino oscillations experiments. Also, U_{e3} is found to be of the order ~0.1.