Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 301 4 b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The identities and show respectively that the kinetic term and both mass bilinears are Lorentz invariant. Infinitesimally, the first identity makes transform by the vector law stated in the question, while the second makes a scalar.
Varying the anticommuting components of givesThe factor two from varying the antisymmetric quadratic form cancels the in the mass term. This is a Majorana mass term: under it carries charge , so a nonzero mass is compatible with an unbroken electric charge only for . A charged massive fermion instead needs an independent Weyl field of opposite chirality to form a Dirac mass.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 305 4 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
In the convention , one Standard Model fermion generation including a right-handed neutrino isA bare Dirac mass term pairs left- and right-handed fields in the same gauge representation, but every charged left-handed Standard Model fermion is an doublet while its right-handed partner is a singlet. The Higgs field and permit the gauge-invariant Yukawa interactionsThe neutral Higgs vacuum expectation value turns them into masses after electroweak symmetry breaking.
Because is a gauge singlet, it may also have a large Majorana mass term . Together with its Dirac mass , the seesaw mechanism gives a light neutrino mass . If no right-handed neutrino is retained, the same low-energy physics is encoded by the dimension-five Weinberg operator .
Now let be an electroweak scalar triplet with . Its weights are , and electric charge is , so its components have chargesIn the given matrix convention,Thus the electromagnetic-neutral direction satisfies and .
The gauge-invariant type-II seesaw mechanism Yukawa interaction isThe two lepton doublets have total hypercharge , which is cancelled by , and the displayed contraction is a singlet. Expanding it containsTherefore a neutral condensate preserves electromagnetism and generates a left-handed-neutrino Majorana mass term proportional to .
Seesaw mechanism 2026-09-24
The type-I seesaw mechanism combines a Dirac neutrino mass with a much larger right-handed-neutrino Majorana mass term . Diagonalizing the mass matrix gives a light eigenvalue of order and a heavy eigenvalue of order .
Type-II seesaw mechanism 2026-09-24
The type-II seesaw mechanism couples two lepton doublets to an electroweak scalar triplet. A small neutral-triplet vacuum expectation value directly generates a left-handed neutrino Majorana mass term.