Theories of Leptonic Flavor

I discuss different theories of leptonic flavor and their capability of describing the features of the lepton sector, namely charged lepton masses, neutrino masses, lepton mixing angles and leptonic (low and high energy) CP phases. In particular, I show examples of theories with an abelian flavor symmetry G_f, with a non-abelian G_f as well as theories with non-abelian G_f and CP.Comment: Talk presented at NuPhys2016 (London, 12-14 December 2016), 1+8 pages, LaTeX, 1 table, 8 figure

Mixing Patterns from the Groups Sigma (n phi)

We survey the mixing patterns which can be derived from the discrete groups Sigma (36 x 3), Sigma (72 x 3), Sigma (216 x 3) and Sigma (360 x 3), if these are broken to abelian subgroups Ge and Gnu in the charged lepton and neutrino sector, respectively. Since only Sigma (360 x 3) possesses Klein subgroups, only this group allows neutrinos to be Majorana particles. We find a few patterns that can agree well with the experimental data on lepton mixing in scenarios with small corrections and that predict the reactor mixing angle theta_{13} to be 0.1 <= theta_{13} <= 0.2. All these patterns lead to a trivial Dirac phase. Patterns which instead reveal CP violation tend to accommodate the data not well. We also comment on the outer automorphisms of the discussed groups, since they can be useful for relating inequivalent representations of these groups.Comment: 1+28 pages, 6 tables, no figures; v2: matches version published in J. Phys. A: Math. Theo

Theory of the Neutrino Mass

Theoretical aspects of neutrino physics are reviewed, with emphasis on possible explanations of the smallness of neutrino masses and of the peculiar mixing pattern observed in the lepton sector. Some theoretically motivated frameworks, such as those based on spontaneously broken discrete flavour symmetries, are discussed, stressing the importance of low-energy observables, like anomalous magnetic moments, electric dipole moments and lepton flavour violating transitions, to test further features of these models.Comment: elaborated from talks given by the authors at ''Nu HoRIzons'' (February 13-15, 2008, Allahabad, India), ''Neutrino Oscillations in Venice'' (April 15-18, 2008, Venice, Italy), ''Melbourne Neutrino Theory Workshop'' (June 2-4, 2008, Melbourne, Australia) and ''International School of Astroparticle Physics'' (July 16-26, 2008, Valencia, Spain

Collaborative platforms for streamlining workflows in Open Science

Despite the internet&#x2019;s dynamic and collaborative nature, scientists continue to produce grant proposals, lab notebooks, data files, conclusions etc. that stay in static formats or are not published online and therefore not always easily accessible to the interested public. Because of limited adoption of tools that seamlessly integrate all aspects of a research project (conception, data generation, data evaluation, peer-reviewing and publishing of conclusions), much effort is later spent on reproducing or reformatting individual entities before they can be repurposed independently or as parts of articles.&#xd;&#xa;&#xd;&#xa;We propose that workflows - performed both individually and collaboratively - could potentially become more efficient if all steps of the research cycle were coherently represented online and the underlying data were formatted, annotated and licensed for reuse. Such a system would accelerate the process of taking projects from conception to publication stages and allow for continuous updating of the data sets and their interpretation as well as their integration into other independent projects.&#xd;&#xa;&#xd;&#xa;A major advantage of such workflows is the increased transparency, both with respect to the scientific process as to the contribution of each participant. The latter point is important from a perspective of motivation, as it enables the allocation of reputation, which creates incentives for scientists to contribute to projects. Such workflow platforms offering possibilities to fine-tune the accessibility of their content could gradually pave the path from the current static mode of research presentation into&#xd;&#xa;a more coherent practice of open science

A Realistic Pattern of Lepton Mixing and Masses from S4 and CP

We present a supersymmetric model with the flavour symmetry S4 x Z3 and a CP symmetry which are broken to a Z3 subgroup of the flavour symmetry in the charged lepton sector and to Z2 x CP (x Z3) in the neutrino one at leading order. This model implements an approach, capable of predicting lepton mixing angles and Dirac as well as Majorana phases in terms of one free parameter. This parameter, directly related to the size of the reactor mixing angle theta_{13}, can be naturally of the correct order in our model. Atmospheric mixing is maximal, while sin^2 theta_{12} is larger than 1/3. All three phases are predicted: the Dirac phase is maximal, whereas the two Majorana phases are trivial. The neutrino mass matrix contains only three real parameters at leading order and neutrino masses effectively only depend on two of them. As a consequence, they have to be normally ordered and the absolute neutrino mass scale and the sum of the neutrino masses are predicted. The vacuum of the flavons can be correctly aligned. We study subleading corrections to the leading order results and show that they are small.Comment: 1+23 pages, 3 tables, no figures; v2: matches version published in The European Physical Journal C (including changed title