55,033 research outputs found
A Highly Predictive Ansatz for Leptonic Mixing and CP Violation
We suggest a simple highly predictive ansatz for charged lepton and light
neutrino mass matrices, based on the assumption of universality of Yukawa
couplings. Using as input the charged lepton masses and light neutrino masses,
the six parameters characterizing the leptonic mixing matrix , are
predicted in terms of a single phase , which takes a value around
. Correlations among variuos physical quantities are
obtained, in particular is predicted as a function of
, and , and
restricted to the range .Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Dual consent? Donors' and recipients' views about involvement in decision-making on the use of embryos created by gamete donation in research
Background Reasonable disagreement about the role awarded to gamete donors in decision-making on the use of embryos created by gamete donation (EGDs) for research purposes emphasises the importance of considering the implementation of participatory, adaptive, and trustworthy policies and guidelines for consent procedures. However, the perspectives of gamete donors and recipients about decision-making regarding research with EGDs are still under-researched, which precludes the development of policies and guidelines informed by evidence. This study seeks to explore the views of donors and recipients about who should take part in consent processes for the use of EGDs in research. Methods From July 2017 to June 2018, 72 gamete donors and 175 recipients completed a self-report structured questionnaire at the Portuguese Public Bank of Gametes (response rate: 76%). Agreement with dual consent was defined as the belief that the use of EGDs in research should be consented by both donors and recipients. Results The majority of participants (74.6% of donors and 65.7% of recipients) were willing to donate embryos for research. Almost half of the donors (48.6%) and half of the recipients (46.9%) considered that a dual consent procedure is desirable. This view was more frequent among employed recipients (49.7%) than among non-employed (21.4%). Donors were less likely to believe that only recipients should be involved in giving consent for the use of EGDs in research (25.0% vs. 41.7% among recipients) and were more frequently favourable to the idea of exclusive donors' consent (26.4% vs. 11.4% among recipients). Conclusions Divergent views on dual consent among donors and recipients indicate the need to develop evidence-based and ethically sustainable policies and guidelines to protect well-being, autonomy and reproductive rights of both stakeholder groups. More empirical research and further theoretical normative analyses are needed to inform people-centred policy and guidelines for shared decision-making concerning the use of EGDs for research
CP Violation and Flavour Mixings in Orbifold GUTs
We address the flavour problem by incorporating the hypothesis of universal
strength of Yukawa couplings in the framework of a 5D GUT model compactified on
an orbifold. We show that a quantitatively
successful picture of fermion masses and mixings emerges from the interplay
between the bulk suppression factors of geometric origin and the phases of the
Yukawa matrices. We give an explicit example, where we obtain a good fit for
both the CKM and PMNS matrices.Comment: 8 pages, no figures; v2: minor changes, published in Phys Rev D
(Rapid Communication
Leptonic Invariants, Neutrino Mass-Ordering and the Octant of
We point out that leptonic weak-basis invariants are an important tool for
the study of the properties of lepton flavour models. In particular, we show
that appropriately chosen invariants can give a clear indication of whether a
particular lepton flavour model favours normal or inverted hierarchy for
neutrino masses and what is the octant of . These invariants can
be evaluated in any conveniently chosen weak-basis and can also be expressed in
terms of neutrino masses, charged lepton masses, mixing angles and CP violation
phases.Comment: 10 pages, no figure
Non-Factorizable Phases, Yukawa Textures and the Size of sin (2 beta)
We emphasize the crucial r\^ ole played by non-factorizable phases in the
analysis of the Yukawa flavour structure performed in weak bases with Hermitian
mass matrices and with vanishing entries. We show that non-factorizable
phases are important in order to generate a sufficiently large .
A method is suggested to reconstruct the flavour structure of Yukawa couplings
from input experimental data both in this Hermitian basis and in a
non-Hermitian basis with a maximal number of texture zeros. The corresponding
Froggatt--Nielsen patterns are presented in both cases.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure
On the long-term correlation between the flux in the Ca II H & K and Halpha lines for FGK stars
The re-emission in the cores of the Ca II H & K and H lines, are well
known proxies of stellar activity. However, these activity indices probe
different activity phenomena, the first being more sensitive to plage
variation, while the other one being more sensitive to filaments. In this paper
we study the long-term correlation between and , two indices based on the Ca II H & K and H lines
respectively, for a sample of 271 FGK stars using measurements obtained over a
9 year time span. Because stellar activity is one of the main obstacles
to the detection of low-mass and long-period planets, understanding further
this activity index correlation can give us some hints about the optimal target
to focus on, and ways to correct for these activity effects. We found a great
variety of long-term correlations between and . Around 20% of our sample has strong positive correlation between
the indices while about 3% show strong negative correlation. These fractions
are compatible with those found for the case of early-M dwarfs. Stars
exhibiting a positive correlation have a tendency to be more active when
compared to the median of the sample, while stars showing a negative
correlation are more present among higher metallicity stars. There is also a
tendency for the positively correlated stars to be more present among the
coolest stars, a result which is probably due to the activity level effect on
the correlation. Activity level and metallicity seem therefore to be playing a
role on the correlation between and . Possible
explanations based on the influence of filaments for the diversity in the
correlations between these indices are discussed in this paper.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysic
Quasidegeneracy of Majorana Neutrinos and the Origin of Large Leptonic Mixing
We propose that the observed large leptonic mixing may just reflect a
quasidegeneracy of three Majorana neutrinos. The limit of exact degeneracy of
Majorana neutrinos is not trivial, as leptonic mixing and even CP violation may
occur. We conjecture that the smallness of , when compared to the
other elements of , may just reflect the fact that, in the limit of
exact mass degeneracy, the leptonic mixing matrix necessarily has a vanishing
element. We show that the lifting of the mass degeneracy can lead to the
measured value of while at the same time accommodating the observed
solar and atmospheric mixing angles. In the scenario we consider for the
breaking of the mass degeneracy there is only one CP violating phase, already
present in the limit of exact degeneracy, which upon the lifting of the
degeneracy generates both Majorana and Dirac-type CP violation in the leptonic
sector. We analyse some of the correlations among physical observables and
point out that in most of the cases considered, the implied strength of
leptonic Dirac-type CP violation is large enough to be detected in the next
round of experiments.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Matches published version, references added,
improved discussion, results unchange
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