Majorana mass term

A Majorana mass term pairs a Weyl field with itself and violates its continuous phase symmetry. Gauge invariance therefore permits it only when the field is neutral under every unbroken gauge charge.

A real symmetric one-family Dirac-Majorana mass matrix can have a negative algebraic eigenvalue. A rephasing of the corresponding Weyl field puts its physical rest mass at the absolute value. Relative Majorana phases can still affect coherent lepton-number-violating amplitudes.

For anticommuting components and an antisymmetric numerical matrix $A$, $\delta ({\psi }^{T}A\psi )=2\delta {\psi }^{T}A\psi$: move the second varied field past the first and use $A^T=-A$. Applying this to $C^{-1}$ and to $C$ cancels the factor $1/2$ in $\mathcal{L}=\bar{\psi }i/\partial \psi +\frac{1}{2}(m{\psi }^T{C}^{-1}\psi -m^{\ast }\bar{\psi }C{\bar{\psi }}^T)$. Varying the Dirac adjoint gives the first displayed equation. Integration by parts in the spinor variation gives $i{\gamma }^{\mu T}{\partial }_{\mu }{\bar{\psi }}^T+m{C}^{-1}\psi =0$; multiplication by $C$ gives the second. Squaring the coupled equations yields $(\square +|m{|}^2)\psi =0$, so the physical Majorana fermion mass is $|m|$.