PhD Thesis: Models in Neutrino Physics: Numerical and Statistical Studies
by
Johannes Bergström(Department of Theoretical Physics, KTH)
→
Europe/Stockholm
FB54
FB54
Description
The standard model of particle physics can excellently describe the vast majority of data of particle physics experiments. However, in its simplest form, it cannot account for the fact that the neutrinos are massive particles and lepton flavors mixed, as required by the observation of neutrino oscillations. Hence, the standard model must be extended in order to account for these observations, opening up the possibility to explore new and interesting physical phenomena.
There are numerous models proposed to accommodate massive neutrinos. The simplest of these are able to describe the observations using only a small number of effective parameters. Furthermore, neutrinos are the only known existing particles which have the potential of being their own antiparticles, a possibility that is actively being investigated through experiments on neutrinoless double beta decay. In this thesis, we analyse these simple models using Bayesian inference and constraints from neutrino-related experiments, and we also investigate the potential of future experiments on neutrinoless double beta decay to probe other kinds of new physics.
In addition, more elaborate theoretical models of neutrino masses have been proposed, with the seesaw models being a particularly popular group of models in which new heavy particles generate neutrino masses. We study low-scale seesaw models, in particular the resulting energy-scale dependence of the neutrino parameters, which incorporate new particles with masses within the reach of current and future experiments, such as the LHC.
