The Simplest Models of Radiative Neutrino Mass: Excluding Simplified Zee Models and Beyond

Abstract

The complexity of radiative neutrino-mass models can be judged by: (i) whether they require the imposition of ad hoc symmetries, (ii) the number of new multiplets they introduce, and (iii) the number of arbitrary parameters that appear. Adopting the view that the imposition of arbitrary new symmetries is the least appealing approach, the simplest models have two new multiplets and a minimal number of new parameters. With this in mind, we search for the simplest models of radiative neutrino mass. We are lead to two new models, containing a real scalar triplet and a charged scalar doublet (respectively), in addition to the charged singlet scalar considered by Zee [h^+\sim(1,1,2)]. The new models are essentially simplified versions of the Zee model and appear to be \emph{the simplest} models of radiative neutrino mass. However, these models are only of pedagogical interest; despite successfully generating nonzero masses, present-day data is sufficient to rule them out. The lessons learned from these models also enable one to exclude a more general class of radiative models. Moving beyond the minimal cases, we find a new model of two-loop masses that employs the charged doublet \Phi\sim(1,2,3) and the doubly-charged scalar k^{++}\sim(1,1,4).