Implications of a Massless Neutralino for Neutrino Physics

Abstract

We consider the phenomenological implications of a soft SUSY breaking term BN at the TeV scale (here B is the U(1)_Y gaugino and N is the right-handed neutrino field). In models with a massless (or nearly massless) neutralino, such a term will give rise through the see-saw mechanism to new contributions to the mass matrix of the light neutrinos. We treat the massless neutralino as an (almost) sterile neutrino and find that its mass depends on the square of the soft SUSY breaking scale, with interesting consequences for neutrino physics. We also show that, although it requires fine-tuning, a massless neutralino in the MSSM or NMSSM is not experimentally excluded. The implications of this scenario for neutrino physics are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, latex, no figure