Time- and Space-Varying Neutrino Mass Matrix from Soft Topological Defects

Abstract

We study the formation and evolution of topological defects that arise in the post-recombination phase transition predicted by the gravitational neutrino mass model in [Dvali, Funcke, Phys. Rev. D 93, 113002 (2016)]. In the transition, global skyrmions, monopoles, strings, and domain walls form due to the spontaneous breaking of the neutrino flavor symmetry. These defects are unique in their softness and origin; as they appear at a very low energy scale, they only require Standard Model particle content, and they differ fundamentally depending on the Majorana or Dirac nature of the neutrinos. One of the observational signatures is the time dependence and space dependence of the neutrino mass matrix, which could be observable in future neutrino experiments. Already existing data rule out parts of the parameter space in the Majorana case. The detection of this effect could shed light onto the open question of the Dirac versus Majorana neutrino nature.

10 pages, v2: updated to match journal version

References in corpus (6)

• Tests of the Gravitational Inverse-Square Law below the Dark-Energy Length Scale
• Neutrino Oscillations as a Probe of Light Scalar Dark Matter
• Time-varying neutrino mass from a supercooled phase transition: current cosmological constraints and impact on the ${\Omega }_m$-${\sigma }_8$ plane
• Reconstruction of the neutrino mass as a function of redshift
• Probing scalar dark matter oscillations with neutrino oscillations
• Constraining dynamical neutrino mass generation with cosmological data

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Neutrino mass tension or suppressed growth rate of matter perturbations?
• Large neutrino mass in cosmology and keV sterile neutrino dark matter from a dark sector
• Exploring the vacuum structure of gravitationally induced neutrino masses
• Scale and redshift dependent limits on cosmic neutrino properties
• $\mathcal{H}$olographic $\mathcal{N}$aturalness and Information See-Saw Mechanism for Neutrinos