- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Dirac neutrinos and gauged lepton number

A. E. Cárcamo Hernández1,2,3,*, Andrés Enríquez4,†, Sergey Kovalenko5,3,‡, Eduardo Peinado6,§, and Carlos Alberto Vaquera-Araujo7,4,8,∥

  • *Contact author: antonio.carcamo@usm.cl
  • †Contact author: jjandres1997@gmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: sergey.kovalenko@unab.cl
  • §Contact author: epeinado@fisica.unam.mx
  • ∥Contact author: vaquera@fisica.ugto.mx
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 113, 055044 – Published 25 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yk62-mgwb

Abstract

We propose the first scotogenic neutrino mass model with gauged lepton number U(1)L, which is spontaneously broken by three units ΔL=3 down to a residual discrete gauge symmetry Z6. The latter guarantees that neutrinos acquire tiny Dirac masses via a one-loop scotogenic mechanism, simultaneously stabilizing the lightest electrically neutral particle with nontrivial charge under the preserved Z6 symmetry. In our model there is a scalar particle identified as weakly interacting massive particle dark matter (DM) candidate. We analyzed its compatibility with the existing data on direct DM detection experiments and the DM relic abundance. We also address charged lepton flavor violating decays in our model and find that their predicted rates are within the reach of current experimental sensitivity.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (41)

  1. Z. Tao, Radiative seesaw mechanism at weak scale, Phys. Rev. D 54, 5693 (1996).
  2. E. Ma, Verifiable radiative seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass and dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 73, 077301 (2006).
  3. P. Fileviez Perez and M. B. Wise, Baryon and lepton number as local gauge symmetries, Phys. Rev. D 82, 011901 (2010).
  4. M. Duerr, P. Fileviez Perez, and M. B. Wise, Gauge theory for baryon and lepton numbers with leptoquarks, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 231801 (2013).
  5. P. Fileviez Perez, Lepton and baryon numbers as local gauge symmetries, Phys. Rev. D 110, 035018 (2024).
  6. H. Debnath and P. Fileviez Perez, Low scale seesaw mechanism with local lepton number, Phys. Rev. D 108, 075009 (2023).
  7. H. Debnath, P. Fileviez Perez, and K. Gonzalez-Quesada, Majorana neutrinos and dark matter from anomaly cancellation, Phys. Rev. D 109, 115030 (2024).
  8. H. Debnath and P. Fileviez Perez, Gauge theories of neutrino masses and dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 111, 075020 (2025).
  9. H. Debnath and P. Fileviez Perez, Lepton flavor violation and local lepton number, Phys. Rev. D 112, 095043 (2025).
  10. W.-F. Chang and J. N. Ng, Alternative perspective on gauged lepton number and implications for collider physics, Phys. Rev. D 99, 075025 (2019).
  11. S. O. Kara, An anomaly-free leptophilic U(1)ℓ′ completion of the standard model, arXiv:2511.05976.
  12. K. Chakraborty, A. Das, S. Goswami, and S. Roy, Constraining general U(1) interactions from neutrino-electron scattering measurements at DUNE near detector, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2022) 008.
  13. J. C. Montero and V. Pleitez, Gauging U(1) symmetries and the number of right-handed neutrinos, Phys. Lett. B 675, 64 (2009).
  14. B. Holdom, Two U(1)’s and epsilon charge shifts, Phys. Lett. 166B, 196 (1986).
  15. M. Carena, A. Daleo, B. A. Dobrescu, and T. M. P. Tait, Z′ gauge bosons at the tevatron, Phys. Rev. D 70, 093009 (2004).
  16. P. Schwaller, T. M. P. Tait, and R. Vega-Morales, Dark matter and vectorlike leptons from gauged lepton number, Phys. Rev. D 88, 035001 (2013).
  17. M. Meucci (MEG II Collaboration), MEG II experiment status and prospect, Proc. Sci., NuFact2021 (2022) 120 [arXiv:2201.08200].
  18. R. H. Bernstein (Mu2e Collaboration), The Mu2e experiment, Front. Phys. 7, 1 (2019).
  19. M. Moritsu (COMET Collaboration), Search for muon-to-electron conversion with the COMET experiment †, Universe 8, 196 (2022).
  20. S. Centelles Chuliá, R. Cepedello, E. Peinado, and R. Srivastava, Scotogenic dark symmetry as a residual subgroup of standard model symmetries, Chin. Phys. C 44, 083110 (2020).
  21. M. Kakizaki, A. Santa, and O. Seto, Phenomenological signatures of mixed complex scalar WIMP dark matter, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 32, 1750038 (2017).
  22. N. Aghanim et al. (Planck Collaboration), Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters, Astron. Astrophys. 641, A6 (2020); 652, C4(E) (2021).
  23. J. Aalbers et al. (LZ Collaboration), Dark matter search results from 4.2 tonne-years of exposure of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 011802 (2025).
  24. J. Billard et al., Direct detection of dark matter—APPEC committee report*, Rep. Prog. Phys. 85, 056201 (2022).
  25. C. E. Aalseth et al. (DarkSide-20k Collaboration), DarkSide-20k: A 20 tonne two-phase LAr TPC for direct dark matter detection at LNGS, Eur. Phys. J. Plus 133, 131 (2018).
  26. M. Schumann, L. Baudis, L. Bütikofer, A. Kish, and M. Selvi, Dark matter sensitivity of multi-ton liquid xenon detectors, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2015) 016,
  27. J. Kubo, E. Ma, and D. Suematsu, Cold dark matter, radiative neutrino mass, μ→eγ, and neutrinoless double beta decay, Phys. Lett. B 642, 18 (2006).
  28. C. Bonilla, L. M. G. de la Vega, J. M. Lamprea, R. A. Lineros, and E. Peinado, Fermion dark matter and radiative neutrino masses from spontaneous lepton number breaking, New J. Phys. 22, 033009 (2020).
  29. L. M. G. de la Vega, P. J. Fitzpatrick, R. Martinez-Ramirez, and E. Peinado, Dark matter for Majorana neutrinos in a Z4 symmetry, Phys. Rev. D 110, 115024 (2024).
  30. S. Centelles Chuliá, R. Srivastava, and S. Yadav, Comprehensive phenomenology of the Dirac Scotogenic Model: Novel low-mass dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2025) 038.
  31. M. Pospelov, A. Ritz, and M. B. Voloshin, Secluded WIMP dark matter, Phys. Lett. B 662, 53 (2008).
  32. L. M. G. de la Vega, E. Peinado, and J. Wudka, Neutrino masses and self-interacting dark matter with mass mixing Z− Z’ gauge portal, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2023) 017.
  33. E. Ma and M. Raidal, Neutrino mass, muon anomalous magnetic moment, and lepton flavor nonconservation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 011802 (2001); 87, 159901(E) (2001).
  34. T. Toma and A. Vicente, Lepton flavor violation in the scotogenic model, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2014) 160.
  35. A. Vicente and C. E. Yaguna, Probing the scotogenic model with lepton flavor violating processes, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2015) 144.
  36. M. Lindner, M. Platscher, and F. S. Queiroz, A call for new physics: The muon anomalous magnetic moment and lepton flavor violation, Phys. Rep. 731, 1 (2018).
  37. K. Afanaciev et al. (MEG II Collaboration), New limit on the μ+→e+γ decay with the MEG II experiment, Eur. Phys. J. C 85, 1177 (2025); 85, 1317(E) (2025).
  38. U. Bellgardt et al. (SINDRUM Collaboration), Search for the decay μ+→e+e+e−, Nucl. Phys. B299, 1 (1988).
  39. M. Aoki et al. (COMET, MEG, Mu2e, Mu3e Collaborations), Charged lepton flavour violations searches with muons: Present and future, arXiv:2503.22461.
  40. R. M. Amarinei, The Mu3e experiment: Status and short-term plans, arXiv:2501.14667.
  41. G. Alguero, G. Belanger, F. Boudjema, S. Chakraborti, A. Goudelis, S. Kraml, A. Mjallal, and A. Pukhov, micrOMEGAs 6.0: N-component dark matter, Comput. Phys. Commun. 299, 109133 (2024).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 113, 055044– Published 25 March, 2026
  • Received 7 January 2026
  • Accepted 10 March 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

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.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation