Speaker
Jeffrey Berryman
(Northwestern University)
Description
Baryon number minus lepton number — B–L — appears to be a good symmetry of Nature. If it turns out that B–L is, in fact, a fundamental symmetry, then nonzero neutrino masses must be Dirac in character, but there are plenty of opportunities to discover new physics related to B–L conservation. In this talk, I present recent results (arXiv:1802.00009) concerning a new, Standard-Model-singlet scalar with nonzero B–L charge that couples to (anti)neutrinos like a Majoron without giving neutrinos a Majorana mass. I will discuss constraints on this scenario, including those from accelerator neutrino experiments like DUNE, and will briefly mention other phenomena related to the potential existence of this new scalar.