Reproducing lepton mixing in a texture zero model

Abstract

We note that the emerging features of lepton mixing can be reproduced if, with inverted neutrino mass ordering, both the smallest neutrino mass and the $ττ$ element of the neutrino mass matrix vanish. Then, the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle is less than maximal and the Dirac phase $δ$ is close to $π$. We derive the correlations among the mixing parameters and show that there is a large cancellation in the effective mass responsible for neutrinoless $ββ$ decay. Three simple seesaw models leading to our scenario are provided.