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  • Open Access

Probing neutrino-light-quark effective scalar interactions from neutrino masses

Feng-Zhi Chen, Junlin Huang, and Fanrong Xu*

  • Department of Physics, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, People’s Republic of China

  • *Contact author: fanrongxu@jnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 055017 – Published 6 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/gp7s-njbk

Abstract

In this work, we use neutrino masses as a probe of the neutrino-light-quark effective scalar interactions. It is found that neutrinos can acquire masses not only from the usual light quark loop corrections, but also from the light quark condensates. The latter contribution has been overlooked in the literature. We show that both contributions are comparable for operators involving u and d quarks, while quark loop corrections dominate for operators involving the s quark. Using the low-energy effective field theory extended with light right-handed neutrinos and matching to chiral perturbation theory, we systematically analyze these contributions, deriving constraints on the corresponding Wilson coefficients from neutrino mass bounds, coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, and light pseudoscalar meson invisible decays. Our analysis shows that electron neutrino mass measurements provide the most stringent constraints on these scalar couplings, significantly improving upon limits from other observables. The results highlight the importance of including both perturbative and nonperturbative contributions in complete phenomenological analyses of neutrino mass generation mechanisms.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 055017– Published 6 March, 2026
  • Received 16 December 2025
  • Accepted 11 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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