Common Radiative Origin of Active and Sterile Neutrino Masses

Abstract

Sterile neutrinos with sub-electron volt (eV) masses have recently received serious attention due to the tantalizing hints from reactor neutrino experiments as well as cosmology. While the nine year old Wilkinson Mass Anisotropy Probe experiment suggests the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom to be $N_{\text{eff}} = 3.84 \pm 0.40$, recently reported Planck collaboration results show more preference towards the standard three light neutrino scenario $ N_{\text{eff}} = 3.30^{+0.54}_{-0.51}$. Keeping in mind that the issue of existence or non-existence of sub-eV scale sterile neutrinos is not yet settled, here we outline a mechanism to generate sub-eV scale masses for three active and one sterile neutrinos simultaneously. The model is based on an abelian extension of standard model where the fermion and scalar fields are charged under the additional $U(1)$ gauge group in such an anomaly free way that it allows one eV scale neutrino and three massless neutrinos at tree level. However, at one loop level, this model naturally allows three active and one sterile neutrino with mass at the sub-eV scale. The model also allows for mixing between active and sterile neutrinos at one loop level which can have interesting signatures in reactor neutrino experiments.