Chirality for massive neutrinos - right neutrinos - Majorana

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SUMMARY

This discussion centers on the relationship between chirality and helicity in the context of massive neutrinos, specifically Majorana neutrinos. It is established that while left-handed neutrinos can exhibit both left and right helicity when boosted, right helicity neutrinos exist within a beam of left chiral neutrinos. The rarity of observing processes that would reveal the Majorana nature of neutrinos, such as inverse beta decay, is attributed to the suppression of these processes by the chirality flip, quantified as roughly (mν/E)², where E represents the weak scale energy. The discussion highlights the challenges in detecting these interactions due to the extremely small masses of neutrinos.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of chirality and helicity in particle physics
  • Familiarity with Majorana neutrinos and their properties
  • Knowledge of neutrino mass scales and their implications
  • Basic concepts of weak interactions and beta decay processes
NEXT STEPS
  • Research the implications of Majorana neutrinos on particle physics
  • Learn about the experimental techniques for detecting neutrino interactions
  • Study the mechanisms of double beta decay and its significance
  • Explore the role of chirality in weak interactions and its effects on particle behavior
USEFUL FOR

Physicists, researchers in particle physics, and students studying neutrino properties and interactions will benefit from this discussion, particularly those interested in the implications of Majorana neutrinos and their detection challenges.

chym
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My question concerns the chirality vs helicity for massive neutrinos.
I know that as the mass is really light we can usually approximate helicity = chirality.
But I would like to consider the exact case with the mass :
i.e left handed (chirality )neutrino propagates with both left and right helicity (if boost).
So it means that right (helicity) neutrinos exist in a "beam" of left chiral neutrinos...
If neutrinos are Majorana, these neutrinos with right helicity could interact exactly as right anti-neutrino are doing... So why this has not been already observed ? I know double beta decay is searched for that, but in more simple processes... like inverse beta decay ?
thank you
 
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Neutrino masses are really really tiny. The processes you mention, where you can observe the Majorana nature, are suppressed by the chirality flip so roughly ##(m_\nu/E)^2## where ##E## is a relevant energy scale, usually of order weak scale. This makes such processes exceedingly rare.
 

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