Neutrino Oscillation - Origins of Neutrino Mass

Origins of Neutrino Mass

The question of how neutrino masses arise has not been answered conclusively. In the Standard Model of particle physics, fermions only have mass because of interactions with the Higgs field (see Higgs boson). These interactions involve both left- and right-handed versions of the fermion (see chirality). However, only left-handed neutrinos have been observed so far.

Neutrinos may have another source of mass through the Majorana mass term. This type of mass applies for electrically-neutral particles since otherwise it would allow particles to turn into anti-particles, which would violate conservation of electric charge.

The smallest modification to the Standard Model, which only has left-handed neutrinos, is to allow these left-handed neutrinos to have Majorana masses. The problem with this is that the neutrino masses are implausibly smaller than the rest of the known particles (at least 500,000 times smaller than the mass of an electron), which, while it does not invalidate the theory, is not very satisfactory.

The next simplest addition would be to add into the Standard Model right-handed neutrinos that interact with the left-handed neutrinos and the Higgs field in an analogous way to the rest of the fermions. These new neutrinos would interact with the other fermions solely in this way, so are not phenomenologically excluded. The problem of the disparity of the mass scales remains.