The origin of neutrino masses is one of the most pressing issues in particle physics. After the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider, researchers learned how the charged fermions and massive gauge bosons acquire their masses through the Higgs mechanism. However, the origin of neutrino masses remained unknown.
Pavel Fileviez Perez, associate professor in the Department of Physics, recently penned an article in Physical Review D that proposed a new theory, which provides new ways to test its origin in different experiments. This theory also predicts a candidate for the cold dark matter in the universe with interesting properties. This new theoretical framework provides a solution to two main issues in particle physics and cosmology: the origin of neutrino masses and dark matter in the universe.
Fileviez Perez’s article is titled “Lepton and baryon numbers as local gauge symmetries.” Read the paper.