Implications of Neutrino Mass Generation from QCD Confinement

Abstract

We consider the possibility that the quark condensate formed by QCD confinement generates Majorana neutrino masses m_\nu via dimension seven operators. No degrees of freedom beyond the Standard Model are necessary, below the electroweak scale. Obtaining experimentally acceptable neutrino masses requires the new physics scale \Lambda ~ TeV, providing a new motivation for weak-scale discoveries at the LHC. We implement this mechanism using a Z_3 symmetry which leads to a massless up quark above the QCD chiral condensate scale. We use non-helicity-suppressed light meson rare decay data to constrain \Lambda. Experimental constraints place a mild hierarchy on the flavor structure of dimension seven operators and the resulting neutrino mass matrix.