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Jim Kata
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Does that fact that it has been shown that neutrinos have mass in any way imply that there must be right handed neutrinos?
Jim Kata said:Does that fact that it has been shown that neutrinos have mass in any way imply that there must be right handed neutrinos?
Jim Kata said:Follow up question. If there are right handed neutrinos is there an explanation as to why they haven't been observed?
mjsd said:not necessarily, because you can have a majorana mass term consisting of only one type of neutrino field: [tex](\nu_L)^c \nu_L \Delta[/tex] but to make this term (after spontaneous symmetry breaking) to be invariant under the unbroken gauge group (SU(3) color and U(1) electric charge), then you need [tex]\Delta[/tex] to be a triplet field under weak-SU(2). So you can do without the right handed neutrino [tex]\nu_R[/tex] but have to introduce a new scalar field [tex]\Delta[/tex] to the Standard Model instead to give neutrino a mass.
blechman said:Actually, if you allow for non-renormalizable operators in the SM (coming from a GUT theory, for example) then you immediately get a Majorana mass without adding anything (no new scalars)! In fact, the UNIQUE(!) dimension-5 operator will do it:
Neutrinos are subatomic particles that are electrically neutral and have very little mass. They are important in understanding mass because they are the only known particles that have mass but do not interact with the Higgs field, which gives other particles their mass.
The current understanding of neutrino mass is that it is very small, but not exactly zero. The exact value of the neutrino mass is still unknown, but scientists have been able to measure the differences in mass between different types of neutrinos.
Right-handed neutrinos are hypothetical particles that are predicted by some theories to exist. They are important in the theory of neutrino mass because they could help explain why neutrinos have such a small mass compared to other particles.
Scientists are using a variety of methods to try to determine the mass of neutrinos. These include studying the behavior of neutrinos in particle accelerators, observing the effects of neutrinos on cosmic rays, and analyzing data from neutrino detectors.
The discovery of the mass of neutrinos could have significant implications for our understanding of the universe and the laws of physics. It could also have practical applications, such as improving our ability to detect and study subatomic particles and potentially leading to new technologies based on the properties of neutrinos.