Neutrino masses from neutral top partners

Abstract

We present theories of "natural neutrinos" in which neutral fermionic top partner fields are simultaneously the right-handed neutrinos (RHN), linking seemingly disparate aspects of the Standard Model structure: (a) The RHN top partners are responsible for the observed small neutrino masses, (b) they help ameliorate the tuning in the weak scale and address the little hierarchy problem, and (c) the factor of 3 arising from Nc in the top-loop Higgs mass corrections is countered by a factor of 3 from the number of vectorlike generations of RHN. The RHN top partners may arise in pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone-Boson Higgs models such as the twin Higgs, as well as more general composite, little, and orbifold Higgs scenarios, and three simple example models are presented. This framework firmly predicts a TeV-scale seesaw, as the RHN masses are bounded to be below the TeV scale by naturalness. The generation of light neutrino masses relies on a collective breaking of the lepton number, allowing for comparatively large neutrino Yukawa couplings and a rich associated phenomenology. The structure of the neutrino mass mechanism realizes in certain limits the inverse or linear classes of seesaw. Natural neutrino models are testable at a variety of current and future experiments, particularly in tests of lepton universality, searches for lepton flavor violation, and precision electroweak and Higgs coupling measurements possible at high energy e+e- and hadron colliders.