Rethinking the Origin of Neutrino Masses: the Role of Gravity

Lena Funcke (Perimeter Institute)

July 18, 2019

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Abstract: The most popular directions of model building beyond the Standard Model focus on new phenomena at the high energy scales of the early Universe. As an alternative direction, we have developed a late-Universe solution to the neutrino mass problem at a low-energy gravitational scale, which is numerically coincident with the scale of dark energy. In my talk, I will focus on the cosmological and astrophysical predictions of our model. In particular, I will explain the weakening of the cosmological neutrino mass bounds, the possibility of dark energy decay, and the distinction between Majorana and Dirac neutrinos through astrophysical neutrino decays. This talk is based on arXiv:1602.03191, arXiv:1811.01991, and arXiv:1905.01264.