Anomaly-free U(1) gauge symmetries in neutrino seesaw flavor models

Abstract

Adding right-handed neutrino singlets and/or fermion triplets to the particle content of the Standard Model allows for the implementation of the seesaw mechanism to give mass to neutrinos and, simultaneously, for the construction of anomaly-free gauge group extensions of the theory. We consider Abelian extensions based on an extra U(1)_X gauge symmetry, where X is an arbitrary linear combination of the baryon number B and the individual lepton numbers L_{e,mu,tau}. By requiring cancellation of gauge anomalies, we perform a detailed analysis in order to identify the charge assignments under the new gauge symmetry that lead to neutrino phenomenology compatible with current experiments. In particular, we study how the new symmetry can constrain the flavor structure of the Majorana neutrino mass matrix, leading to two-zero textures with a minimal extra fermion and scalar content. The possibility of distinguishing different gauge symmetries and seesaw realizations at colliders is also briefly discussed.