The Type-II Singular See-Saw Mechanism

Abstract

The singular see-saw mechanism is a variation of the see-saw mechanism whereby the right-chiral neutrino Majorana mass matrix is singular. Previous works employing the singular see-saw mechanism have assumed a vanishing left-chiral Majorana mass matrix. We study the neutrino spectrum obtained under a singular see-saw mechanism when the left-chiral neutrinos possess a non-zero Majorana mass matrix. We refer to this as the type-II singular see-saw mechanism. The resulting neutrino spectrum is found to be sensitive to the hierarchy of the Dirac and Majorana mass scales used and we explore the phenomenological consequences of the candidate hierarchies. The compatibility of the resulting spectra with the body of neutrino oscillation data is discussed. It is found that neutrino mass matrices with this structure result in 3+1 or 2+2 neutrino spectra, making it unlikely that this mass matrix structure is realized in nature. If the left-chiral Majorana mass matrix is also singular we show that a type-II singular see-saw mechanism can realize a spectrum of one active-sterile pseudo-Dirac neutrino in conjunction with two active Majorana neutrinos effectively decoupled from the sterile sector. This realizes a scheme discussed in the literature in relation to astrophysical neutrino fluxes.