The minimal seesaw and leptogenesis models

TL;DR

This paper reviews the minimal seesaw model with two right-handed neutrinos, focusing on its phenomenological implications for neutrino physics and cosmology, and how it can be tested against current experimental data.

Contribution

It provides an up-to-date comprehensive review of the minimal seesaw and leptogenesis, emphasizing flavor structures and experimental confrontations.

Findings

Constraints from neutrino oscillation data

Implications for lepton flavor violation

Predictions for cosmological observations

Abstract

Given its briefness and predictability, the minimal seesaw -- a simplified version of the canonical seesaw mechanism with only two right-handed neutrino fields -- has been studied in depth and from many perspectives, and now it is being pushed close to a position of directly facing experimental tests. This article is intended to provide an up-to-date review of various phenomenological aspects of the minimal seesaw and its associated leptogenesis mechanism in neutrino physics and cosmology. Our focus is on possible flavor structures of such benchmark seesaw and leptogenesis scenarios and confronting their predictions with current neutrino oscillation data and cosmological observations. In this connection particular attention will be paid to the topics of lepton number violation, lepton flavor violation, discrete flavor symmetries, CP violation and antimatter of the Universe.