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# Galaxy Pairs in the 2dF Survey I. Effects of Interactions in the Field

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The actual cosmology paradigm for galaxy formation assumes that structure forms by hierarchical aggregation. In such scenarios galaxy interactions are frequent and have a crucial role in determining galaxy properties. The formation of galaxies in these schemes can be successfully analyzed by using numerical simulations which show that, as the systems are assembled, mergers and interactions can trigger star formation with efficiencies that seem to depend mainly on the internal structure of the systems. By using pre-prepared mergers, Barnes & Hernquist (1996) showed how the gas component experiences torques originated in the companion, increasing its gas density and triggering a starburst during the orbital decay phase of the satellite. These starbursts are fed by gas inflows tidally induced if the axisymmetrical character of the potential well is lost during the interaction. The stability of the systems can be assured by a dominating central mass concentration. A second starburst could be generated at the actual fusion of the baryonic cores. Cosmological hydrodynamical simulations showed that these processes take place in the formation of galactic systems in a hierarchical aggregation scenario in a similar way to that shown by pre-prepared mergers. Tissera (2000) found a correlation between mergers and starbursts. Recently, Tissera et al. (2002, Tis02) showed that the effects of interactions are different at different stages of evolution of the systems being more efficient at higher $`z`$ when the systems are in early stages of evolution, and consequently, their potential well could be shallower. If the structure in the Universe formed in consistency with a hierarchical scenario, then, the proximity of a companion could affect the mass distributions and trigger gas inflows producing an enhancement of the star formation (SF) activity.

In the local Universe, observations show that mergers and interactions of galaxies affect star formation in galaxies (e.g., Larson & Tinsley 1978; Donzelli & Pastoriza 1997; Barton, Geller & Kenyon 1998). It has also been shown that the merger rates (e.g., Woods, Fahlman, Richer 1995; Le Fevre et al. 2001; Patton et al. 2002) and the star formation activity of galaxies increase with redshift, suggesting a change in the impact of interactions on the SF process as galaxies evolve. Although the relevance of these violent events on the formation of the structure and their SF history is now widely accepted, many questions remain to be answered. For example, as it has been reported by other authors (e.g., Petrosian et al. 2002), many interacting systems show weak star formation activity suggesting that the particular internal conditions within these systems may be needed to trigger star formation.

An insight on the nature of interactions can be obtained from studies of close pairs of galaxies in projection. Physical pairs must have similar redshifts, where relative velocities affect distance interpretation and therefore the true relative separations. Yee & Ellingson (1995) and Patton et al. (1996) adopt a minimum projected separation of $`20h^1kpc`$ to define close pairs and they find no significant differences between mean properties of paired and isolated galaxies although those which appear to be undergoing interactions or mergers have strong emission line and blue rest-frame colours. A similar result by Zeff & Koo (1989) indicate that in some systems colours correspond to recently enhanced star formation with an overall distribution consistent with field galaxies. Kennicutt et al. (1987) examined the $`H_\alpha `$ equivalent width, UBV colours and far-infrared flux of a complete sample of local pairs of galaxies and found that these close pairs exhibit a general trend of enhanced star formation and nuclear activity but with a wide dispersion about the mean behavior. Barton et al. (1998) analyzed a sample of approximately 250 pairs of galaxies showing a correlation between their radial and velocity separations and the $`H_\alpha `$ equivalent width. Although these authors found a clear correlation, their pair sample is still small to carry out a thoughtful statistical study of the effects of interactions and their cosmological evolution.

The 100K public data release (Colles et al. 2001) of approximately 100000 galaxies of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFRS) opens the possibility to study galaxy interactions by selecting the largest galaxy pair catalog hitherto constructed and analyzing their properties. The 2dF public data provide the redshift, magnitude and spectral types ($`\eta `$) of galaxies with $`z0.15`$ (Madgwick et al. 2002a, hereafter M02). Madgwick et al. (2002b) found a tight correlation between $`\eta `$ and the birthrate parameter $`b`$.

In this work, we present a catalog of galaxy pairs in the field constructed from the 2dF public release data and analyze their properties in comparison to isolated galaxies in the field. For this purpose we will exclude those galaxies that belong to groups as defined by Merchán & Zandivarez (2001, hereafter MZ01). Pairs in high density environments will be analyzed in a forthcoming paper. Here, we aim at answering questions such as which type of galaxies are preferentially found in pairs, how the star formation varies among them according to their luminosities, etc. We also intend to statistically determine a critical relative radial velocity and spatial separation for the classification of galaxy pairs. As it has been pointed out in previous works, galaxy pairs can be classified as interacting or close pairs. Interacting galaxy pairs are those that show explicit signs of interactions such as tidal tails. Close pairs are defined according to velocity difference and spatial separation criteria (e.g., Barton et al.2002; Patton et al. 2002). In this work, galaxy pairs will be statistically selected by applying both a velocity and separation criteria which will be determined according to the star formation activity of neighbouring galaxies.

Because the public release 2dF catalog has different selection effect problems, control samples sharing the same selection effects will be constructed, focusing the analysis on the statistical differences between galaxies in pairs and isolated ones in the 2dFRS as a useful procedure to unveil the effects of galaxy interactions on the star formation process.

In Section 2 we will defined the pair selection criteria , field galaxy pair catalog and the comparison samples. Section 3 is focused on the analyses of the star formation properties of galaxies in pairs and Section 4 summarizes the main conclusions.

## 2 GALAY PAIR CATALOG

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey public data consist of 102326 galaxies observed in the northern and southern main strips of the final planned catalog which will have approximately 250000 galaxies. Despite of the fact that the 2dF public catalog is not complete, we argue that galaxy pair searching is not severely affected by completeness effects. In effect, in spite of the fact that the minimum fiber separation for 2dF spectroscopy is approximately 25 arcsec, the survey strategy was to repeat the measurements in each field with new fiber positions in order to achieve the highest completeness. Thus, from this point of view there is no bias against small angular separations which would bias the results specially at higher redshifts. Therefore, the inclusion of a pair in our catalog depends mostly on the inclusion of each member in the survey, which were randomly selected within the targets of each field. Therefore, we conclude that there are not significant selection effects on the pair sample which could bias our results on star formation activity.

The 2dF data comprise information on redshift ($`z`$), angular separation, spectral type ($`\eta `$) and blue magnitude ($`m_b`$).

The spectral type parameter $`\eta `$ are defined by a Principal Component Analysis, PCA, carried out by M02 where it was found to be related to the morphological type and the strength of the absorption-emission features. Madgwick et al. (2002a) suggest four different spectra groups:

Type 1: $`\eta <1.4`$
Type 2: $`1.4\eta <1.1`$
Type 3: $`1.1\eta <3.5`$
Type 4: $`\eta 3.5`$.

The good correlation found between $`\eta `$ and EW($`H_\alpha `$) by M02 supports the interpretation of this parameter as a good indicator of star formation activity.

We have estimated galaxy luminosities by applying the K-corrections derived by M02. The public 2dF data have galaxies with redshift in the range up to $`z0.3`$, however, for the purpose of defining galaxy pairs we restrict our analysis to $`z0.1`$ in order to prevent the results for strong biases in galaxy luminosities and unreliable spectral type estimates for distant galaxies.

Contamination by AGN activity could contribute to the emission spectral features and therefore affect our interpretation of star formation derived from the $`\eta `$ parameter. However, on the global sense our conclusions should not be greatly affected given the expected good correlation between the star birth rate parameter $`b`$ and the $`\eta `$ parameter in the models analysed by Madgwich et al. (2002b).

As we discussed in the introduction, Barton et al. (1998) presented a sample of approximately 500 galaxies in pairs which were selected to have projected separations $`r_\mathrm{p}<50\mathrm{h}^1`$ kpc and velocity separations $`\mathrm{\Delta }V1000\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$. With this sample they studied the possibility that tidal interactions induced star formation. However, it is not clear from their work, if there are critical spatial and velocity separations which could establish limits for tidal interactions to be effective star formation triggering mechanisms.

We have estimated the stellar birthrate parameter, $`b=SFR/<SFR>`$ for each galaxy which provide a useful measure of the present level of star formation activity of a galaxy related to its mean past SF history. This parameter has been found to correlate with the morphological type (Kennicutt 1992) in the sense that late-type spirals and starbursts have larger $`b`$ values. According to the calibration shown by Kennicutt (1998), systems undergoing strong star formation activity have $`b>1`$.

In order to compute the $`b`$ parameter we assume a linear correlation between $`\eta `$ with EW($`H_\alpha `$) as reported by M02: $`EW(H_\alpha )=5.64\eta +10.9`$. The final relation between $`b`$ and $`\eta `$ was obtained by fitting a linear regression of the form $`b=0.045EW(H_\alpha )+0.61`$ to the high star forming galaxies of Carter et al. (2001). The resulting equation $`b=0.25\eta +1.06`$ relates linearly $`b`$ with $`\eta `$. Our relation reproduce very well the calibration shown by Kennicutt (1998). We notice that the dependence of $`b`$ on $`\eta `$ estimated by Madgwick et al. (2002b) is stronger than the linear one adopted in this paper. It should be taken into account that the birthrate parameter $`b`$ is linked to models for the star formation history and so the results are reliable on a global or statistical sense. Therefore, the conclusions obtained in this work are not expected to depend crucially on the particular dependence of $`b`$ on $`\eta `$ as far as $`\eta `$ provides a useful measure of star formation in galaxies.

For the purpose of analysing how $`b`$ depends on $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ (defined as $`\mathrm{\Delta }V=c(z_1z_2)`$,where $`z_1`$ and $`z_2`$ are the redshift of the galaxies in the pair), we estimated the number of neighbours within concentric spheres centred at a given galaxy. Then, we calculated the mean star formation rate parameter $`<b>`$ of these neighbours. Three sub-samples were constructed according to the $`\eta `$ spectral type of the galaxy centre. Sub-samples I, II and III take as a centre a galaxy with $`\eta >3.5`$, $`\eta >1.4`$ and a any $`\eta `$ value, respectively. We have adopted $`\eta =1.4`$ to roughly segregate galaxies between two main types: early and late ones, while $`\eta >3.5`$ corresponds to systems undergoing strong star formation activity. Sub-sample III has been constructed to compare the two previous ones with the general 2dF survey.

All galaxies with $`r_\mathrm{p}1`$ Mpc and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V1000\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ were taken into account. In Fig. 1, for each sub-sample, we show the mean birthrate parameter in $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ bins. Otherwise stated error bars in the figure have been computed trough the bootstrap technique. ¿From this figure we see that, when the central galaxy has $`\eta >1.4`$ or $`\eta >3.5`$, the $`<b>`$ parameter increases, as the further away neighbours are cast out.

This result makes evident that the closer neighbours experience the stronger star formation activity. This effect is more significant when the central galaxy is also experiencing strong star formation activity ($`\eta >3.5`$). We can also observed that neighbours of Type 4 galaxies within 1 Mpc have $`<b>`$ larger than the averaged one of 2dF galaxies at any $`r_\mathrm{p}`$.

Similar calculations where done for velocity bins within $`\mathrm{\Delta }V<1000\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$. In Fig. 2 we show $`<b>`$ as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ for the sub-samples constructed by the same criteria mentioned above. We found a velocity cut-off of $`350\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ (vertical dotted line), so that galaxies with $`\mathrm{\Delta }V<350\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ have $`<b>`$ significantly enhanced with respect to the those of the total 2dF survey at a $`3\sigma `$ level.

Therefore, according to this analysis, $`r_\mathrm{p}100`$ kpc and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V350\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ can be defined as reliable upper limits for the relative radial velocity and projected distance criteria to select galaxy pairs with stronger specific star formation than the averaged galaxies in the 2dF. The signals are more significant when the centre galaxies belong to the spectral Type 4, but it is statistically equivalent to that measured for central galaxies with $`\eta >1.4`$. Hence these values of relative projected separation and radial velocity may be considered as suitable thresholds for the triggering of star formation induced by interactions.

### 2.1 Field Galaxy Pair Catalog

¿From the previous analysis we found that a projected distance of 100 kpc and a relative radial velocity of 350 $`\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ are reliable limits to select pairs with high probability of being an interacting system with enhanced specific star formation activity. Galaxies situated at larger distances and with greater velocity differences do not show statistically significant signs of enhanced SF with respect to the background. With these criteria, we constructed a galaxy pair (GP) catalog from the 2dF public release data. And since, we are interested in studying those pairs that belong to the field (pairs in groups will be discussed in a future paper), we cross-correlated the total galaxy pair catalog with the 2dF group catalog developed by MZ02. The resulting field galaxy pair catalog (FGPC) comprises 1258 pairs with $`z0.1`$.

In order to properly assess the significance of the results obtained from the FGP catalog we have defined a sample of control galaxies from the 2dF catalog by a Monte Carlo algorithm that selects for each galaxy pair in the FGP catalog, two galaxies in the field (i.e. not included in the FGP catalog and not members of the MZ group catalog) with the same redshift range of the galaxy pair with no restriction in their relative distance. The procedure followed to construct this control catalog assures that it will have the same selection effects than the FGP catalog, and consequently, it can be used to estimate the actual difference between galaxies in pairs and isolated galaxies, in the field, unveiling the effect of the interactions.

For analyzing the spectral type composition of the FGPs in comparison with the that of general galaxies in the field we defined five combined categories ($`C_i`$) according to the combination of spectral type of the galaxies in the pairs. The first four correspond to GPs that have equal spectral type: $`C1=(1,1)`$, $`C2=(2,2)`$, $`C3=(3,3)`$ and $`C4=(4,4)`$. The last spectral category corresponds to pairs composed of galaxies with different spectral types (Table 1).

In Fig. 3a we have plotted the ratio between the fraction of FGPs in the first four spectral categories and of those obtained from the control sample ($`F^{}=f_{\mathrm{FGP}}^{}/f_{CS}^{}`$). We see that there is excess of C1 and C4 spectral category pairs with respect to the control sample, suggesting a trend for FGPs to be composed of two galaxies with similar spectral characteristics, both non star forming or both with significant star formation (see Table 1). We have estimated the mean luminosities of $`<(L_1+L_2)/2>`$, of each category pair and the corresponding to the control sample. In Fig. 3b we show the corresponding ratios of these two samples. We can see that on average, galaxy pairs in C3 and C4 categories are significantly more luminous than their isolated counterparts.

## 3 Star Formation in Galaxy Pairs

The final FGP catalog allows a detailed study of the possible effects of the interactions. For these galaxies, we have estimated the $`<b>`$ as a function of $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{V}`$ where $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{V}`$ are the projected distance and the relative radial velocity , respectively, between members of a pair.

Fig. 4 shows $`<b>`$ in bins of $`r_\mathrm{p}`$. It can be seen that the star formation efficiency increases for closer galaxy pairs. A similar behaviour is found for the relative radial velocity (Fig. 5). Power laws provide good fits to the data. The following relations for the mean $`b`$ parameter and the equivalent width have been obtained from these fittings:

$$<EW>=(4.10\pm +0.50)r_\mathrm{p}^{0.40\pm 0.02}$$
(1)
$$<EW>=(1.30\pm 0.50)\mathrm{\Delta }V^{0.30\pm 0.16}$$
(2)
$$<b>=(0.63\pm 0.01)r_\mathrm{p}^{0.23\pm 0.02}$$
(3)
$$<b>=(0.40\pm 0.31)\mathrm{\Delta }V^{0.14\pm 0.09}$$
(4)
where $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ are given in Mpc and $`\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ and $`EW`$ in Amstrong. Errors have been estimated by applying the bootstrap technique (100 random samples). Note that the dependence on the projected distance is more significant than on the velocity separation. These relations have been confronted with Barton et al. (1998) data finding a good agreement with their observations for the dependence on projected distance.

In order to assess the importance of interactions on SF activity compared to isolated galaxies, we have computed the mean $`b`$ parameter for the galaxy pair control sample, $`\overline{b}=1.32`$. This value has been depicted in Fig. 4 and in Fig. 5 (dashed lines) where it can be appreciated that only galaxies in very close pairs show significantly higher mean star formation activity than that of isolated galaxies in the field.

Complications related to the physical interpretation of redshift space identified pairs where $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ provide only lower limits for the true galaxy separations should be always considered. Also, transient properties, interlopers and interactions which have not undergone a close approximation difficult a straightforward interpretations of the mean values of the starbirth rate parameter. Taking into account these caveats, we have calculated the fraction $`f^{}`$ of star forming galaxies with $`b>\overline{b}`$, and show them in the small windows of Fig. 4 and in Fig. 5. The dashed lines represent the corresponding fractions for the control sample. As it can be appreciated the proximity in projected distance correlates with an increase in the fractions of galaxies undergoing strong star formation activity until they exceed the mean fraction of the control sample. Note that although we find no excess of $`b`$ in FGP with respect to those of isolated ones as a function of the relative radial velocity, there is a tendency in the fractions of pairs with $`b>\overline{b}`$ and small $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$. These results point out the existence of a large number of pairs that, although satisfying the general constrains of velocity and spatial separations do not exhibit enhanced SF with respect to isolated galaxies.

The weaker dependence of the mean birth rate parameter $`<b>`$ on the relative velocity may have several sources. Firstly, an overall rms uncertainty of $`85`$ km/s is derived by repeated observations in the 2dF survey and by comparison with other redshift catalogs. This large scatter implies a large observational error in the relative velocity of a pair of galaxies in the catalog $`120`$ km/s. Therefore, this observational uncertainty should be considered as the main cause of the weaker dependence on relative velocity. There are, however, other issues to be considered, since there can be several pairs with large spatial separations but with small radial velocity differences. Hence, for a given relative velocity bin, contributions of pairs with different orbital position are canceled out. This is reflected in the lack of large $`b`$ values for any relative velocity bin (notice however, that the global mean $`b`$ values for all $`r_p`$ in Fig. 4, and all $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ in Fig. 5 are equal). In the case of projected separation bins, there is also a contamination by small $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ and large $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ although the enhancement of star formation with spatial separation is strong enough to override this contamination.

In order to visualize how $`<b>`$ depends on the combination of orbital parameters we have estimated $`b`$ as a function of $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ by considering pairs by different velocity separations (Fig. 6). As it can be clearly seen the signal increases as pairs with larger $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ are excluded from the calculations. A similar behavior is observed for the fractions ($`f^{}`$). Those are systems with large relative distance observed with a small projected separation. From this figure we may infer that as the galaxies orbit into each other or experience a close encounter, the star formation activity of the system increases. In spite of the uncertainty in $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ due to measurement errors, we note that the larger star formation activity for pairs with quoted values as small as $`\mathrm{\Delta }V<50`$ km/s.

The most significant difference between the star formation activity of galaxies in pairs and those of the control sample is obtained when the analysis is restricted to pairs with $`r_\mathrm{p}25`$ kpc. This sub-sample shows the strongest signal of enhanced SF as illustrated in Fig. 7 where we have plotted the $`b`$ parameters as a function of the relative radial velocity . The dashed lines depict the mean $`<b>`$ and $`f^{}`$ for the corresponding control sample. Confronting this figure with Fig. 5 X we can conclude that pairs with small $`r_p`$ have a statistically significant increase of their star formation rate when restricted to small relative velocities. In consequence, we define a subsample of close pairs by imposing the restrictions: $`r_p<25`$ kpc and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V<100\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$, hereafter close GP (CGP) sample. This set of galaxies exhibits the the higher star formation efficiency.

### 3.1 Dependence on Luminosity

An analysis of the dependence of the SF activity on the luminosity of the galaxies in pairs could help to understand how SF activity is regulated between pair members. Several observational works have found evidence that in an interacting pair, the fainter galaxy seems to be more affected (e.g. Donzelli & Pastoriza 1997). Recently, Colina et al. (2001) found that Ultra Luminous Infrared Galaxies could be related to the merger of structures with different luminosities in the range $`0.32L^{}`$. Arguments related to the stability properties of the galaxies have been used to explain these observations. Numerical simulations show that disc galaxies with a small or with a lack of bulge component (e.g, Mihos & Hernquist 1996; Domínguez-Tenreiro, Tissera & Sáiz 1998; Tissera et al. 2002) tend to be more susceptible to the effects of tidal interactions which can trigger gas inflows and star formation. According to Tissera et al. (2002) these systems would be in early stages of evolution where their bulges are being built up, and consequently, on average, they would be smaller (or fainter).

We can use this large galaxy pair catalog for investigating this point on a more firm statistical basis. For this purpose we estimate the mean birth rate parameter in luminosity bins for galaxies in the FGP catalog and those in the control sample. We then define the star formation excess $`\beta `$ as the ratio between these two $`b`$ parameters. Hence, $`\beta `$ yields the excess of star formation in galaxies in pairs with respect to any isolated galaxy in the field with the same selection effects and redshift distribution. This point is crucial for the understanding of the following reasonings since we are always assessing the effects of having a companion on the SF activity by comparing to isolated galaxies with the same redshift distribution. In this Section we also add the constrain of luminosity range.

In Fig. 8 we show $`<\beta >`$ vs log $`<L/L_{}>`$ for the FGP and the CGP samples ($`r<25`$ kpc and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V<100\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$). As it can be seen the total FGP sample shows the same level of SF activity than isolated galaxies in the field ($`\beta 1`$), while the CGP sample has a larger star formation enhancement with respect to isolated galaxies ($`\beta 1.5`$). In the small box, we show the fraction of galaxies ($`F^{}`$) that are experiencing larger SF activity than the corresponding mean in the control sample, in each luminosity interval, over the corresponding fractions of the control samples. This calculation was carried out for both the complete and the close galaxy pair samples. It can be appreciated from this box a significant increase in the fraction of star formation galaxies in pairs with respect to isolated ones as a function of luminosity. This trend is washed out when mean b values are estimated since there is a large percentage of non star-forming pairs. Owing to the fact that the larger difference between the star formation of galaxies in pairs and that of isolated ones is detected for bright galaxies, we have to consider the possible presence of AGN as well as starburst associated to interactions. Note that we are always measuring the SF excess respect to isolated galaxies. In absolute mean values, faint galaxies have a higher $`b`$ parameter.

### 3.2 Pairs formed by similar and different luminosity galaxies

In this section we analyse FGPs according to the relative luminosity of their member galaxies. For FGPs and galaxies in the control sample, we estimate the ratio of luminosities $`L_2/L_1`$ of the faint over the bright member. As shown in Fig. 9, we found that FGPs are composed of galaxies with relative luminosities similar to those of any isolated pair of galaxies in the field (with the same redshift distribution), except for a weak tendency for some excess of pairs of galaxies composed with different luminosities. The bootstrap error analysis indicates that this excess has a statistical significance. This is likely to be due to the effects of the interaction, where it could be argued for truncated star formation owing to the tidal perturbation of the more massive companion.

We define two sub-samples according to the relative luminosity of galaxies ($`L_2,L_1`$) in pairs. We adopt $`L_2/L_1=0.5`$ as a threshold to split the FGP catalog into two subsamples of dissimilar ($`L_2/L_1<0.5`$) and a similar ($`L_2/L_10.5`$) galaxy luminosities in pairs (this choice divides the sample into subsamples with roughly the same number of members). Assuming that all interacting pairs might eventually give origin to a merger event, this luminosity ratio can be also interpreted as a threshold to split the data into major and minor merger candidate sub-samples. We then calculated the $`<\beta >`$ parameter as a function of luminosity for these two sub-samples restricted to the subsample of close galaxy pairs defined by $`r_\mathrm{p}<25`$ kpc and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V<100\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$. While for the minor merger candidate sub-sample, we found no excess, a mean $`\beta 2`$ is detected for the major merger candidate one. However, in both cases, we found no dependence on luminosity.

In order to shed light on the importance of galaxy luminosity and the strength of the interaction we have also investigated the dependence of the SF excess on projected distance for the fainter and brighter galaxy members in minor merger candidates ($`L_2/L_10.5`$). For this purpose we have estimated the $`<\beta >`$ parameter as a function of $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ for the faint and bright components of CGPs as shown in Fig. 10. It can be appreciated from this figure the similar behavior of the mean SF enhancement with respect to the control sample of the two components. However, when fractions are estimated for the bright (dashed) and faint (solid) components we found that the former shows a clear excess. At a given luminosity, brighter components of dissimilar luminosity pairs have a larger probability to have enhanced SF when compared to isolated galaxies and from larger projected distances.

As similar analysis was performed for the major merger candidate sub-sample. In this case in order to classify them in bright and faint luminosity pairs we estimated the mean luminosity of the pair and adopted a threshold of log $`(L_1+L_2)/(2L_{})=9.5`$. For these two sets, we estimated $`<\beta >`$ as a function of projected distance. The results are plotted in Fig. 11 from where it can be appreciated that the two samples exhibit a similar trend in mean SF enhancement as a function of $`r_\mathrm{p}`$ which is found to be higher than that of minor merger candidates. The small box shows the ratio between the fraction of galaxies with $`b>\overline{b}`$ and those corresponding to the control sample. In this case, we found that both components of major merger candidates have a similar probability to have enhanced SF activity. However, we note that the fractions are larger than those of the corresponding control sample only for close encounters ($`r_\mathrm{p}25`$ kpc)

This analysis suggests that the effects of interactions on the SF activity is more important in the brighter components of pairs with different luminosities. For galaxies with a similar luminosity companion, both objects show a larger star formation activity than isolated galaxies.

It should be stressed that these results do not contradict observations where the faint member of interacting pairs has on average a larger star formation activity since these studies lack a proper confrontation to isolated galaxies (see Bergvall et al. 2003 for the first observational works that used this approach).

## 4 Discussion and Conclusions

We carried out a statistical analysis of 1258 galaxy pairs in the field with $`z0.1`$ selected from the 2dF public release data. Our study is centred on the star formation enhancement of the pair members with respect to isolated galaxies in the field with the same redshift distribution and luminosities by analysis the dependence of the mean birth rate paremeters and the fractions of star forming galaxies. Particularly, the latter results to be an important tool to unveil the effects of having a companion since it is less affected by interpolers, non SF pairs, etc.

We can summarize our results in the following main conclusions.

1. We detect a significant correlation between the star birth rate parameter $`<b>`$ and both, projected spatial separation $`r_p`$ and relative radial velocity $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ for galaxy pairs. For $`r_p<25`$kpc and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V<100`$ km/s we obtain a substantial star formation enhancement with respect to the isolated control sample. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ dependence is less pronounced although we find a systematic increase of star formation activity for decreasing relative velocity.

2. A significant percentage of galaxies ($`45\%`$ ) which satisfy the pair selection criteria but that have negligible star formation has been found. This result suggests that it is not only proximity that may be playing a role in triggering star formation but the internal structure of the galaxies could also be a crucial factor as it has been found in numerical simulations.

3. There is no an overall dependence of the mean star formation enhancement $`<\beta >`$ on luminosity for galaxy pairs at $`z0.10`$. A nearly constant value $`<\beta >1.2`$ for the total FGP catalog and $`<\beta >2`$ for the close GP subsample have been measured. However, the fractions of galaxies in pairs that have a higher SF activity than the corresponding averaged one of isolated galaxies, show a clear excess for the bright members.

4. We divide the close pair sample in minor ($`L_2/L_1<0.5`$) and major ($`L_2/L_1>0.5`$) merger candidates according to their relative luminosities. We found that bright components in minor merger candidates show higher probability to have enhanced SF by tidal interactions than isolated galaxies and from larger projected distances than the faint components. In the case of major mergers both components show comparable star formation enhancements and with a similar projected distance dependence.

## Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Agencia de Promoción de Ciencia y Tecnología, Fundación Antorchas and Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.


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# Two–loop Neutrino Mass Generation and its Experimental Consequences

## I Introduction

Recent neutrino oscillation experiments, notably Super-Kamiokande and SNO, have provided a wealth of information on neutrino masses and mixing pattern. First and foremost, the solar  and the atmospheric neutrino data  are incompatible with the hypothesis of zero neutrino mass. The inferred values of neutrino masses are in the sub–eV range. The mixing angle $`\theta _{12}`$ relevant for solar neutrino oscillations appears to be large ($`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{12}0.4`$) , while the one for atmospheric neutrino oscillations $`\theta _{23}\pi /4`$ is near maximal. Reactor neutrino experiments  constrain the third mixing angle $`\theta _{13}`$ to be relatively small, $`\theta _{13}0.16`$. It will be of great interest to seek a theoretical understanding of these observations.

The seesaw mechanism  has been the most popular explanation of the small neutrino masses. It is elegant and simple, and relies only on dimensional analysis for the required new physics. Current neutrino data points to a seesaw scale of $`M_R10^{10}10^{15}`$ GeV, where lepton number violation occurs through the Majorana masses of the right–handed neutrinos. With such a high scale, effects of lepton flavor violation in processes other than neutrino oscillation itself becomes extremely small. For example, the branching ratio for the decay $`\mu e+\gamma `$ is of order $`10^{50}`$ within the seesaw extension of the Standard Model.

An alternative to the seesaw mechanism which also explains the smallness of neutrino masses naturally is the radiative mass generation mechanism . In this approach, neutrino masses are zero at the tree–level, and are induced only as finite radiative corrections. These radiative corrections are typically proportional to the square of the charged lepton (or quark) masses divided by the scale of new physics $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The neutrino masses can then be in the sub–eV range even for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ TeV. In this case, lepton flavor violation in processes other than neutrino oscillations may become experimentally accessible.

In this paper we propose to analyze in detail the experimental consequences of a specific model wherein the neutrino masses arise as two–loop radiative corrections . The magnitude of these induced masses are of order $`m_\nu [(f^2h)/(16\pi ^2)^2](m_\tau ^2/\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, where $`f,h`$ are dimensionless Yukawa couplings and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the scale of new physics. For $`fh0.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ 1 TeV, the neutrino mass will be of order 0.1 eV, which is compatible with the oscillation data. Within this model, it is required that $`f,h0.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$ TeV, or else the induced neutrino mass will be too small to be relevant experimentally. These limits, along with the requirement of large solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillation angles, imply that lepton flavor violation in processes such as $`\tau 3\mu `$ and $`\mu e+\gamma `$ cannot be suppressed arbitrarily. We shall see that these decays are within reach of the next round of rare decay experiments. Furthermore, the upper limit on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ implies that it is very likely that the new scalars predicted by the model for neutrino mass generation will be accessible for direct observation at the LHC and perhaps even at Run II of the Tevatron.

A variety of radiative neutrino mass models exist in the literature. The Zee model of neutrino mass  is a popular example. In this model, neutrino masses arise as one–loop radiative corrections. This model appears to be incompatible with the large mixing angle MSW solution for the solar neutrino problem as it predicts the relevant mixing angle to to very close to $`\pi /4`$ . In any case, one would expect rare leptonic processes to be more suppressed in the Zee model compared to the two–loop neutrino mass model . This is because the neutrino masses in the Zee model, being of one–loop origin, are of order $`m_\nu [fg/(16\pi ^2)](m_\tau ^2/\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, and in order for it to explain the atmospheric data, one must choose either $`f10^4`$ if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ TeV, or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }10^6`$ GeV if $`f1`$. This should be contrasted with the two–loop neutrino mass model where the Yukawa couplings are needed to be order 0.1 and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of order TeV.

Another class of neutrino mass models that has been widely studied is supersymmetric models with explicit $`R`$–parity violation . In this case, it turns out that only one neutrino acquires a tree–level mass, the other two obtain masses as one–loop radiative corrections. The phenomenology of such models, especially when $`R`$–parity violation is soft, arising only through bilinear terms, has been thoroughly investigated .

In Ref.  a general effective operator approach for small Majorana neutrino masses has been presented. It follows from that analysis that if lepton number violation resides only in the leptonic sector and does not involve the quarks, then the only interesting model for the current neutrino oscillation data that also predicts observable lepton flavor violation signals is the two–loop model of Ref. . This is the main reason for revisiting the two–loop model in the present paper.

The outline of the paper is as follows. In Section II we will have a quick review of the two–loop neutrino mass model. In Section III we analyze quantitatively the constraints on the model arising from neutrino oscillation data. Here we also show how the model can accommodate the near bi–maximal mixing pattern preferred by the current data. In Section IV, we analyze the constraints arising from rare lepton decays. Here we present bounds on the masses and couplings of the charged scalars present in the model. Section V is devoted to the collider implications of the model. We provide our conclusions in Section VI.

## II Description of the Model

We start by reviewing the essential features of the two–loop neutrino mass model . The gauge group of the model is the same as the Standard Model (SM). In addition to the SM particles the model introduces two charged scalars $`h^+`$ and $`k^{++}`$ which are both singlets of $`SU(3)_C`$ and $`SU(2)_L`$. These scalars have Yukawa couplings to the leptons, which can be parametrized in terms of two complex matrices $`f`$ and $`h`$:

$$_Y=f_{ab}\left(\psi _{aL}^{Ti}C\psi _{bL}^j\right)ϵ_{ij}h^++h_{ab}^{}\left(l_{aR}^TCl_{bR}\right)k^{++}+\text{h.c.}$$
(1)
Here $`\psi _L`$ stands for the left-handed lepton doublet, and $`l_R`$ for the right-handed lepton singlet. $`C`$ is the charge conjugation matrix. $`i,j`$ are $`SU(2)_L`$ indices, while $`a,b`$ are generation indices. The matrix $`f`$ is antisymmetric ($`f_{ab}=f_{ba}`$) due to Fermi statistics and antisymmetry in the $`SU(2)_L`$ indices, while $`h^{}`$ is a symmetric matrix ($`h_{ab}^{}=h_{ba}^{}`$). The interaction Lagrangian in terms of the component fields will then be

$$_Y=2\left[f_{e\mu }(\overline{\nu _e^c}\mu _L\overline{\nu _\mu ^c}e_L)+f_{e\tau }(\overline{\nu _e^c}\tau _L\overline{\nu _\tau ^c}e_L)+f_{\mu \tau }(\overline{\nu _\mu ^c}\tau _L\overline{\nu _\tau ^c}\mu _L)\right]h^+$$
(2)
$$+\left[h_{ee}\overline{e^c}e_R+h_{\mu \mu }\overline{\mu ^c}\mu _R+h_{\tau \tau }\overline{\tau ^c}\tau _R+h_{e\mu }\overline{e^c}\mu _R+h_{e\tau }\overline{e^c}\tau _R+h_{\mu \tau }\overline{\mu ^c}\tau _R\right]k^{++}+\text{h.c.}$$

where we have defined $`h_{aa}=h_{aa}^{},h_{ab}=2h_{ab}^{}`$ for $`ab`$.

The Yukawa interactions of Eq. (1) conserves lepton number ($`L`$), as can be seen by assigning two units of $`L`$ to the $`h^+`$ and $`k^{++}`$ fields. The scalar piece of the Lagrangian contains a term

$$_{hk}=\mu h^+h^+k^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.$$
(3)
which would then violate $`L`$. In fact, one sees that the combination of Eqs. (1) and (3) explicitly breaks lepton number. This would lead to the generation of Majorana neutrino masses at the two–loop level. The relevant diagram is shown in Fig. 1. The induced neutrino mass can be calculated to be

$$(_\nu )_{ab}=8\mu f_{ac}m_ch_{cd}^{}m_df_{db}I_{cd}$$
(4)
where $`m_c,m_d`$ are the charged lepton masses and $`I_{cd}`$ is the two loop integral function given by

$$I_{cd}=\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^4q}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{1}{(k^2m_c^2)}\frac{1}{(k^2m_h^2)}\frac{1}{(q^2m_d^2)}\frac{1}{(q^2m_h^2)}\frac{1}{(kq)^2m_k^2}.$$
(5)
In order to evaluate the above integral, we may neglect the lepton massess in the denominator, since these massess are much smaller than the charged scalar masses $`m_h`$ and $`m_k`$. Then

$$I_{cd}I=\frac{1}{(16\pi ^2)^2}\frac{1}{m_h^2}\stackrel{~}{I}\left(\frac{m_k^2}{m_h^2}\right).$$
(6)
The dimensionless quantity $`\stackrel{~}{I}`$ defined as

$$\stackrel{~}{I}(r)=_0^1𝑑x_0^{1x}𝑑y\frac{1y}{x+(r1)y+y^2}\text{log}\frac{y(1y)}{x+ry}$$
(7)
is plotted in Fig. 2 for $`r=m_k^2/m_h^2<100`$. The asymptotic behavior for small $`m_k`$ and $`m_km_h`$ is given by:

$$\stackrel{~}{I}(r)\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{\text{log}^2r+\pi ^2/31}{r}\hfill & \text{for}r1\hfill \\ \pi ^2/3\hfill & \text{for}r0\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
Before we estimate the induced neutrino masses and mixings, we wish to make some remarks on the expected magnitude of the relevant coupling parameters $`f_{ab},h_{ab}`$ and $`\mu `$. First, in order for perturbative expansion to be sensible, the Yukawa couplings $`f_{ab},h_{ab}`$ have to be of order unity or smaller. For concreteness we shall take $`f_{ab}<1,h_{ab}<2`$ (the $`f_{ab}`$ couplings appear with a factor of 2 in Eq. (2)) (see further remarks at the end of this section). The dimensional parameter $`\mu `$ can be constrained as follows. The Lagrangian terms in Eq. (3) lead to an effective quartic interaction for the $`h^+`$ and $`k^{++}`$ fields given by

$$_{eff}=\lambda _{eff}(h^+)^2(h^{})^2+\lambda _{eff}^{}(k^{++})^2(k^{})^2+\lambda _{eff}^{\prime \prime }(h^+h^{})(k^{}k^{++}).$$
(9)
Evaluating the diagrams in Fig. 3, we obtain:

$`\lambda _{eff}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^4}{(m_k^2m_h^2)^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{m_k^2+m_h^2}{m_k^2m_h^2}}\text{log}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_k^2}{m_h^2}}\right)2\right]`$ (10)
$`\lambda _{eff}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^4}{6m_h^4}}`$ (11)
$`\lambda _{eff}^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^4m_k^2}{2(m_k^2m_h^2)^3}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{m_k^2}{m_h^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_h^2}{m_k^2}}2\text{log}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_k^2}{m_h^2}}\right)\right].`$ (12)
In the limit where the two masses are almost equal ($`m_km_h`$)

$$2\lambda _{eff}\lambda _{eff}^{\prime \prime }4\lambda _{eff}^{}=\frac{1}{\pi ^2}\frac{\mu ^4}{6m_h^4}.$$

Since the effective couplings are negative, it follows that there must exist in the tree–level Lagrangian terms similar to those in Eq. (9) whose couplings (call them $`\lambda ,\lambda ^{},\lambda ^{\prime \prime }`$) should be positive and greater in absolute value than $`\lambda _{eff},\lambda _{eff}^{},\lambda _{eff}^{\prime \prime }`$ (otherwise the vacuum will be unstable). Requiring that the theory be in the perturbative regime with respect to these interactions ($`\lambda ,\lambda ^{},\lambda ^{\prime \prime }<1`$) imposes the following constraints on the $`\mu `$ parameter:

$$\mu <\{\begin{array}{cc}m_h\times (6\pi ^2)^{1/4}\hfill & \text{if}m_km_h\hfill \\ m_h\times (2\pi ^2)^{1/4}\hfill & \text{if}m_km_h\hfill \\ m_h\times (24\pi ^2)^{1/4}\hfill & \text{if}m_km_h.\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
The upper limits on the Yukawa couplings $`f_{ab}`$ and $`h_{ab}`$ can be made more precise by resorting to the renormalization group equations (RGE) and by demanding that the couplings remain perturbative to a momentum scale at least an order of magnitude higher than the weak scale. For example, consider the RGE evolution of the coupling $`f_{\mu \tau }`$: $`df_{\mu \tau }/dt=[3/(4\pi ^2)]f_{\mu \tau }^3+\mathrm{}`$ $`(t\mathrm{ln}\mu `$). From this it follows that an initial value of $`f_{\mu \tau }=1`$ will increase to about 1.5 at a scale an order of magnitude higher. Any larger initial value of $`f_{\mu \tau }`$ will signal non-perturbative effects. Similarly, the coupling $`\lambda _{eff}`$ of Eq. (9) will receive a correction proportional to $`f_{\mu \tau }^4`$, obtained from the RGE $`d\lambda /dt=2f_{\mu \tau }^4/\pi ^2+\mathrm{}`$. An initial value of $`f_{\mu \tau }=1.5`$ will result in $`\lambda _{eff}=2.4`$ at a momentum scale an order of magnitude higher, which will not be in the perturbative regime. An initial value of $`f_{\mu \tau }=1`$ will lead to $`\lambda _{eff}=0.47`$ at a scale ten times higher, which is within the perturbation theory. These arguments suggest that $`f_{ab}`$ should be smaller than about 1 for perturbation theory to be valid. Similar arguments suggest that $`h_{ab}2`$.

## III Fitting the Neutrino Oscillation Data

In this section, we first show how the two–loop neutrino mass model fits the current neutrino oscillation data consistently and then derive the constraints imposed by the data on the model parameters.

We use the standard parametrization of the neutrino mixing matrix (the MNS matrix) in terms of three angles and a phase :

$$U=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& c_{23}& s_{23}\\ 0& s_{23}& c_{23}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}c_{13}& 0& s_{13}e^{i\delta }\\ 0& 1& 0\\ s_{13}e^{i\delta }& 0& c_{13}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}c_{12}& s_{12}& 0\\ s_{12}& c_{12}& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)$$
(14)
where $`c_{ij}=\text{cos}\theta _{ij},s_{ij}=\text{sin}\theta _{ij}`$, and $`\theta _{ij}`$ is the mixing angle between the flavor eigenstates labeled by indices $`i`$ and $`j`$. The transformation

$$U^T_\nu U=_{diag}$$
(15)
diagonalizes the neutrino mass matrix of Eq. (4).

Before going further, we shall make some remarks on the possible values of the neutrino masses. An interesting feature of the two–loop neutrino mass model is that, owing to the antisymmetric nature of the coupling matrix $`f`$, the determinant of the mass matrix $`_\nu `$ is zero . Thus one of the neutrino mass eigenvalues will be zero within the model. Although this result does not prevail when three–loop and higher order corrections are included, the induced mass at these higher loops will be extremely small and can be neglected for all practical purposes.

If one uses the standard parametrization of $`U`$ shown in Eq. (12), the neutrino mass eigenvalues should be allowed to be complex in general. Since an overall phase can be removed by field redefinitions, there are two relative (Majorana) phases in the mass eigenvalues in general. However, since one of the mass eigenvalues is zero in the model under discussion, there is a single Majorana phase, the relative phase of the two non–zero mass eigenvalues. Note that with the choice of $`U`$ as in Eq. (12), the elements of the matrix $`f`$ cannot be made real.

Experimental results indicate at least two mass hierarchies (we shall not consider the LSND experiment here): from the atmospheric oscillation data ($`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$), $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{atm}^22.5\times 10^3\text{eV}^2`$ , and from the solar neutrinos oscillation ($`\nu _e\nu _\mu \text{ or }\nu _\tau `$) $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{LMA}^210^4\text{eV}^2`$ (the Large Mixing Angle MSW solution) or even smaller . As a consequence, there are two possibilities for the diagonal mass matrix $`_{diag}`$ in Eq. (15): the hierarchical form

$$_{diag}=\text{diag}(0,m,M)\text{ with }|m||M|$$
(16)
or the inverted hierarchy form:

$$_{diag\pm }^{}=\text{diag}(M,\pm M+m,0)\text{ with }|m||M|.$$
(17)
We have allowed two possible signs in the inverted hierarchy case. From the point of view of fitting the neutrino oscillation data alone, the $`+`$ sign will be identical to the hierarchical form (Eq. (14)) since the matrices differ only by an identity matrix. However, the implications for the model parameters are different, and thus the predictions for rare processes will be different. Note also that the model does not admit the case of three–fold degenerate neutrino spectrum.

The atmospheric oscillation data implies that $`|M|`$ is about $`0.05`$ eV. This already can give some information on the magnitude of the parameters of the model. From Eq. (4), we have

$$\frac{8\mu }{(16\pi ^2)^2}\frac{|f|^2|\mathrm{\Omega }|}{m_h^2}\stackrel{~}{I}|M|5\times 10^{12}\text{GeV}$$
(18)
where $`|f|=\text{max}(f_{ab}),|\mathrm{\Omega }|=\text{max}(\omega _{ab}=m_ah_{ab}^{}m_b)`$. Taking $`\stackrel{~}{I}`$ to be of order unity and $`\mu `$ to have its maximum value of about $`3m_h`$, the above equation becomes

$$\frac{|f|^2|\mathrm{\Omega }|}{m_h}0.5\times 10^8\text{GeV}.$$
(19)
Since $`m_h`$ has to be at least of order $`100`$ GeV (otherwise $`h^+`$ would have already been seen in collider experiments), the larger of the couplings $`f_{ab},\omega _{ab}/\text{GeV}^2`$ have to be at least of the order $`10^2`$. This raises the possibility that lepton flavor violation will be observable in rare decays. There may even be potential conflict with the current limits. We shall discuss these constraints quantitatively in the next section. Our conclusion there is that presently there is no conflict with the data, but the rare decays should be accessible to the next round of experiments.

In the rest of this section we shall perform a more detailed analysis of the neutrino mixings in the two–loop neutrino mass model. Our first aim is to reproduce the neutrino mass hierarchy and the three neutrino mixing angles. For the case of the atmospheric oscillations, the SuperKamiokande data indicates that the mixing is nearly maximal: $`|\theta _{23}|\pi /4`$. On the other hand, the $`\nu _e\nu _\tau `$ mixing angle is close to zero; the reactor neutrino experiments  have set a limit $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{13}<0.16`$. For the solar neutrino oscillations, the SNO and SuperKamiokande results indicate that while the mixing is not exactly maximal, the mixing angle $`\theta _{12}`$ is of order one, with a preferred value $`\text{tan}^2\theta _{12}0.4`$.

In a first approximation let us take $`\theta _{23}=\theta _{12}=\pi /4`$ and $`\theta _{13}=0`$. This is the exact bimaximal mixing limit. Then the neutrino mass matrix in the flavor basis should have the form

$$\widehat{}_\nu =U_{diag}U^T=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}m& m/\sqrt{2}& m/\sqrt{2}\\ m/\sqrt{2}& M+m/2& Mm/2\\ m/\sqrt{2}& Mm/2& M+m/2\end{array}\right)$$
(20)
for the hierarchical case, or

$$\widehat{}_{\nu +}^{}=U_{diag+}^{}U^T=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}2M+m& m/\sqrt{2}& m/\sqrt{2}\\ m/\sqrt{2}& M+m/2& Mm/2\\ m/\sqrt{2}& Mm/2& M+m/2\end{array}\right)$$
(21)
$$\widehat{}_\nu ^{}=U_{diag}^{}U^T=\frac{1}{4}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}2m& (2M+m)/\sqrt{2}& (2Mm)/\sqrt{2}\\ (2M+m)/\sqrt{2}& m& m\\ (2Mm)/\sqrt{2}& m& m\end{array}\right)$$
(22)
when the diagonal mass matrix has an inverted hierarchy form. The mass matrices above will get small corrections due to the deviation of the mixing angles from the exact bimaximal limit.

On the other hand, by expanding Eq. (4), the neutrino mass matrix from the two loop model can be written in the form

$$_\nu =\zeta \times \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^2\omega _{\tau \tau }+2ϵϵ^{}\omega _{\mu \tau }+ϵ^2\omega _{\mu \mu },& ϵ\omega _{\tau \tau }+ϵ^{}\omega _{\mu \tau }ϵϵ^{}\omega _{e\tau }& ϵ\omega _{\mu \tau }ϵ^{}\omega _{\mu \mu }ϵ^2\omega _{e\tau }\\ & \text{ }ϵ^2\omega _{e\mu },& \text{ }ϵϵ^{}\omega _{e\mu }\\ .& \omega _{\tau \tau }2ϵ^{}\omega _{e\tau }+ϵ^2\omega _{ee},& \omega _{\mu \tau }ϵ\omega _{e\tau }+ϵ^{}\omega _{e\mu }\\ & & \text{ }+ϵϵ^{}\omega _{ee}\\ .& .& \omega _{\mu \mu }+2ϵ\omega _{e\mu }+ϵ^2\omega _{ee}\end{array}\right)$$
(23)
where we have defined

$`\zeta `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\mu }{(16\pi ^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\mu \tau }^2}{m_h^2}}\stackrel{~}{I},\omega _{ab}m_ah_{ab}^{}m_b,`$ (24)
$`ϵ`$ $``$ $`f_{e\tau }/f_{\mu \tau },ϵ^{}f_{e\mu }/f_{\mu \tau }.`$ (25)
(We have written explicitly just the elements above the diagonal in Eq. (21), since the matrix is symmetric). Let us assume for the moment that there is not a strong hierarchy among the $`f_{ab},h_{ab}`$ couplings; in this case, the hierarchy among the lepton masses ($`m_em_\mu ,m_\tau `$) allows us to neglect the $`ϵ\omega _{ea},ϵ^{}\omega _{ea}`$ quantities with respect to $`\omega _{\mu \mu },\omega _{\mu \tau },\omega _{\tau \tau }`$. With this simplification, the neutrino mass matrix will become

$$_\nu \zeta \left(\begin{array}{ccc}ϵ^2\omega _{\tau \tau }+2ϵϵ^{}\omega _{\mu \tau }+ϵ^2\omega _{\mu \mu },& ϵ\omega _{\tau \tau }+ϵ^{}\omega _{\mu \tau }& ϵ\omega _{\mu \tau }ϵ^{}\omega _{\mu \mu }\\ .& \omega _{\tau \tau },& \omega _{\mu \tau }\\ .& .& \omega _{\mu \mu }.\end{array}\right)$$
(26)
Comparing with Eq. (20), we see that a choice

$$\omega _{\mu \mu }\omega _{\mu \tau }\omega _{\tau \tau },ϵϵ^{}1$$
(27)
gives a good fit to the hierarchical neutrino mass matrix (the mass hierarchy in this case being $`m/M`$ of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega /\omega `$). For the inverse mass hierarchy case, the choice $`\omega _{\mu \mu }\omega _{\mu \tau }\omega _{\tau \tau }`$ would fit the lower right hand side $`2\times 2`$ block of the neutrino mass matrices in Eq. (21), but the fact that there are large elements in the first row of these matrices will require that there is a large hierarchy among the $`f`$ couplings; that is, $`ϵ,ϵ^{}`$ should be of order $`M/m`$ or larger. In this case, though, the simplification made to reach the form of Eq. (26) may not be entirely justified.

The question arises then if it is possible to solve for the parameters $`ϵ,\omega `$ exactly, without any approximation, in terms of the elements of $`\widehat{}_\nu `$. Let’s consider the general equation

$$_\nu \frac{\zeta }{f_{\tau \mu }^2}f\omega f^T=\widehat{}$$
(28)
and try to solve for the parameters $`ϵ,ϵ^{},\omega _{ab}`$ in terms of the $`m_{ij}`$ elements of the general matrix $`\widehat{}`$ (the only constraints on this matrix are that it be symmetric and of zero determinant). At first glance, this task may seem impossible; there are five independent equations, each of them of order three in the unknown parameters. However, the particular form of the two loop mass matrix $`_\nu f\omega f^T`$, allows for considerable simplification of the problem.

Note that $`f`$, having zero determinant (as a consequence of antisymmetry), has an eigenvector with zero as an eigenvalue:

$$v_0^T=(1,ϵ,ϵ^{});fv_0=0.$$
(29)
Moreover, $`v_0`$ is also an eigenvector of the $`_\nu `$ mass matrix; multiplying both sides of the matrix equation (28) by $`v_0`$ we obtain

$$\widehat{}v_0=0.$$
(30)
The vector equation above allows solving for the parameters $`ϵ,ϵ^{}`$ in terms of the elements of the matrix $`\widehat{}`$ (denoted by $`m_{ij}`$):

$$ϵ=\frac{m_{12}m_{33}m_{13}m_{23}}{m_{22}m_{33}m_{23}^2},ϵ^{}=\frac{m_{12}m_{23}m_{13}m_{22}}{m_{22}m_{33}m_{23}^2}.$$
(31)
The surprising result is that the $`ϵ,ϵ^{}`$ parameters are completely determined by the mass matrix elements $`m_{ij}`$, regardless of what the $`\omega `$ parameters might be.

Once $`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ^{}`$ are determined, there are six $`\omega `$ parameters left, and three independent equations. These equations are linear in $`\omega `$, and therefore easy to solve. For example, we could use the 22, 23 and 33 matrix equalities

$`\zeta (\omega _{\tau \tau }2ϵ^{}\omega _{e\tau }+ϵ^2\omega _{ee})`$ $`=`$ $`m_{22}`$ (32)
$`\zeta (\omega _{\mu \tau }ϵ\omega _{e\tau }+ϵ^{}\omega _{e\mu }+ϵϵ^{}\omega _{ee})`$ $`=`$ $`m_{23}`$ (33)
$`\zeta (\omega _{\mu \mu }+2ϵ\omega _{e\mu }+ϵ^2\omega _{ee})`$ $`=`$ $`m_{33}`$ (34)
to eliminate any three of the $`\omega `$ parameters in terms of the other three.

In the following, we will apply this general analysis to the two situations resulting from the two possible hierarchies (Eqs. (16,17)) in the neutrino masses.

$``$ In the case of the hierarchical neutrino mass matrix, Eqs. (31) read as

$$ϵ=\text{tan}\theta _{12}\frac{\text{cos}\theta _{23}}{\text{cos}\theta _{13}}+\text{tan}\theta _{13}\text{sin}\theta _{23}e^{i\delta }$$
(35)
$$ϵ^{}=\text{tan}\theta _{12}\frac{\text{sin}\theta _{23}}{\text{cos}\theta _{13}}\text{tan}\theta _{13}\text{cos}\theta _{23}e^{i\delta }$$

for general mixing angles. Taking $`\theta _{23}\pi /4,\theta _{13}0`$, we have

$$ϵϵ^{}\frac{\text{tan}\theta _{12}}{\sqrt{2}}.$$
(36)
Then, for the LMA and LOW solutions to the solar neutrino problem, the $`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ^{}`$ parameters are in the range $`0.40.5`$, with the difference between them being of order $`2\theta _{13}`$.

As mentioned above, for the case when $`ϵ,ϵ^{}`$ are of order unity (or smaller) the $`ϵ\omega _{ea}`$ terms can be neglected with respect to $`\omega _{\mu \mu },\omega _{\mu \tau },\omega _{\tau \tau }`$. Eq. (32) becomes

$`\zeta \omega _{\tau \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`M/2+m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12}(1\theta _{13}e^{i\delta }\text{tan}\theta _{12})/2`$ (37)
$`\zeta \omega _{\mu \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`M/2+m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12}/2`$ (38)
$`\zeta \omega _{\mu \mu }`$ $`=`$ $`M/2+m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12}(1+\theta _{13}e^{i\delta }\text{tan}\theta _{12})/2`$ (39)
in the $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$, small $`\theta _{13}`$ limit. The relative difference between the magnitudes of the large $`\omega `$ parameters is $`|\omega _{\mu \mu }\omega _{\mu \tau }|/|\omega _{\mu \mu }|2(m/M)\text{cos}^2\theta _{12}`$, about 0.1 for the LMA solution, and 0.01 for the LOW solution.

The SMA solution to the solar neutrino oscillations, although strongly disfavored by experimental data, can also be accommodated in this model; in this case, $`ϵ,ϵ^{}`$ would be of order max($`\theta _{12},\theta _{13})<1/10`$. The relations (37) still hold.

Before going further, let us consider the reverse problem, that is, determining the masses and mixing angles in terms of the $`ϵ`$ and $`\omega `$ parameters. Eq. (35) can inverted for two angles in terms of a third:

$`\text{tan}\theta _{13}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\delta }(ϵ\text{sin}\theta _{23}ϵ^{}\text{cos}\theta _{23})`$ (40)
$`\text{tan}\theta _{12}`$ $`=`$ $`\text{cos}\theta _{13}(ϵ\text{sin}\theta _{23}+ϵ^{}\text{cos}\theta _{23}).`$ (41)
Thus, we see that, provided that $`\theta _{23}\pi /4`$, $`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ^{}`$ being almost equal implies that the mixing angle $`\theta _{13}`$ is close to zero.

$``$ For the inverted mass hierarchy case, the relations (31) read as

$$ϵ=\text{sin}\theta _{23}\text{cot}\theta _{13}e^{i\delta },ϵ^{}=\text{cos}\theta _{23}\text{cot}\theta _{13}e^{i\delta }.$$
(42)
Note that here $`\theta _{13}=0`$ would require $`f_{\mu \tau }=0`$. Barring this singular case, we see that the parameters $`ϵ,ϵ^{}`$ are both of order $`0.7/\theta _{13}5`$. Then, neglecting the $`ϵ\omega _{ea}`$ terms is not necessarily well justified. While a general analysis is possible, for the sake of simplicity we will restrict ourselves to the case when such terms are small.

The equations determining the $`h_{ab}`$ coupling constants are:

$`\zeta \omega _{\tau \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`M/2+m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12}(1\theta _{13}e^{i\delta }\text{tan}\theta _{12})/2`$ (43)
$`\zeta \omega _{\mu \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`M/2+m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12}/2`$ (44)
$`\zeta \omega _{\mu \mu }`$ $`=`$ $`M/2+m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12}(1+\theta _{13}e^{i\delta }\text{tan}\theta _{12})/2`$ (45)
for the + sign in Eq. (17), and

$`\zeta \omega _{\tau \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`(m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12})/2+M\text{cos}2\theta _{12}(14\theta _{13}e^{i\delta }\text{tan}2\theta _{12})/2`$ (46)
$`\zeta \omega _{\mu \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`(m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12})/2+(M\text{cos}2\theta _{12})/2`$ (47)
$`\zeta \omega _{\mu \mu }`$ $`=`$ $`(m\text{cos}^2\theta _{12})/2+M\text{cos}2\theta _{12}(1+4\theta _{13}e^{i\delta }\text{tan}2\theta _{12})/2`$ (48)
for the $``$ sign. In this latter case, since $`m/M10^2`$ for the LMA solution (or smaller for the other solutions to the solar neutrino oscillations), and the 1-2 mixing is not quite maximal (cos$`2\theta _{12}0.44`$ for LMA again), the scale in the lower right-hand corner of the neutrino mass matrix is set by the the terms proportional to the large mass $`M`$. This means that the 2-3 family symmetry visible in the exact bimaximal form of the neutrino mass matrix Eq. (22) does not necessarily survive the small corrections in the mixing angles required by experimental results. Also, the relation (27) between the $`\omega `$ parameters is somewhat broken; we have

$$\omega _{\tau \tau }:\omega _{\mu \tau }:\omega _{\mu \mu }(14\theta _{13}\text{tan}2\theta _{12}):1:(1+4\theta _{13}\text{tan}2\theta _{12}).$$
(49)
However, even in this case the $`h_{\mu \mu }`$ coupling is the largest one.

In summary, we have found that both the hierarchical neutrino spectrum and the inverted hierarchical spectrum with near bi-maximal mixings can be accommodated in the two–loop neutrino mass model without difficulty. The parameters of the model are then mostly determined. We now turn to other experimental signatures of the model.

## IV Experimental Constraints

Besides neutrino masses and mixings, the Lagrangian in Eq. (1) leads to non-standard lepton flavor violating processes. For example, at tree level, the second line in Eq. (2) will allow lepton number violating decays, such as $`\mu ^{}e^+e^{}e^{}`$ and $`\tau ^{}\mu ^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, while the first line will give extra contributions to the standard decay of the leptons. At one loop level, the $`f_{ab}`$ and $`h_{ab}`$ couplings will contribute to the anomalous magnetic momentum of the $`e`$ and the $`\mu `$, and will allow decays such as $`\mu e\gamma `$. Experimental costraints will therefore impose limits on the parameters of the model.

In the following, we analyze these processes in turn.

$``$ Lepton family number violating $`\mu `$ and $`\tau `$ decays.

The partial widths for these decay $`l_a^{}l_b^+l_c^{}l_d^{}`$ is given by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(l_a^{}l_b^+l_c^{}l_d^{})=\frac{1}{8}\frac{m_a^5}{192\pi ^3}\left|\frac{h_{ab}h_{cd}^{}}{m_k^2}\right|^2$$
(50)
in the limit when the masses of the decay products are neglected with respect to the mass of the decaying particle. The limits experimental constraints  set on the $`h_{ab}h_{cd}`$ combinations are summarized in Table 1.

$``$ Muonium-antimuonium oscillations.

The last line in Table 1 is the limit arising from muonium-antimuonium conversion process $`\mu ^+e^{}\mu ^{}e^+`$ , mediated by $`t`$-channel $`k^{++}`$ exchange. Using Fierz rearrangement, the amplitude for this process can be written as

$$\frac{1}{2}\frac{i}{m_k^2}\overline{u}(\mu ^+)\gamma ^\alpha P_Ru(e^+)\overline{u}(\mu ^{})\gamma _\alpha P_Ru(e^{})(h_{ee}h_{\mu \mu }^{})$$

giving rise to an effective Lagrangian coupling coefficient

$$G_{M\overline{M}}=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{8}\frac{h_{ee}h_{\mu \mu }^{}}{m_k^2}.$$

$``$ Anomalous magnetic momenta and $`\mu e\gamma `$ –type processes.

At the one–loop level, both $`h^+`$ and $`k^{++}`$ exchange contribute to the processes $`l_al_b\gamma `$. For the case of same leptons in the initial and final states ($`l_al_b`$) this leads to change in the anomalous magnetic moment of the lepton:

$$\delta (g2)_a=\frac{4m_a^2}{96\pi ^2}\left[\frac{(f^{}f)_{aa}}{m_h^2}+\frac{(h^{}h)_{aa}}{m_k^2}\right].$$
(51)
For different leptons in the initial and final states, the decay width for $`l_al_b\gamma `$ (with $`m_a>m_b`$) is:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(l_al_b\gamma )=2\alpha m_a^3\left(\frac{m_a}{96\pi ^2}\right)^2\left[\left(\frac{(f^{}f)_{ba}}{m_h^2}\right)^2+\left(\frac{(h^{}h)_{ba}}{m_k^2}\right)^2\right]$$
(52)
where $`\alpha `$ is the fine structure constant. The limits experimental results on anomalous magnetic moments <sup>*</sup><sup>*</sup>*For the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, the bound on the non-SM contribution is obtained by adding the experimental error in the measurement of $`\delta (g2)_\mu `$ , the theoretical error in evaluating the SM prediction for this quantity , and the difference between the experiment and theory values of $`\delta (g2)_\mu `$ and the $`l_al_b\gamma `$ processes  impose on the $`f`$ and $`h`$ couplings are summarized in Table 2.

$``$ $`l_a\nu _al_b\overline{\nu _b}`$ decays.

The exchange of a $`h^+`$ boson will contribute to the semileptonic decays of the $`\mu `$ and $`\tau `$ leptons. Using Fierz rearrangement of spinors, the amplitude of the $`h^+`$ exchange diagram for the process $`l_a\nu _al_b\overline{\nu _b}`$ can be shown to be proportional to the SM diagram:

$$A_{h^+}=A_{SM}\times 4\frac{|f_{ab}|^2}{m_h^2}\frac{M_W^2}{g^2}.$$
(53)
Therefore, the angular distribution of the decay products is not affected, while the total decay rate is. For the case of $`\mu `$ decay, this implies the redefinition of the Fermi decay constant (which is extracted from the muon lifetime measurements):

$$G_\mu =G_F\left(1+4\frac{|f_{e\mu }|^2}{m_h^2}\frac{M_W^2}{g^2}\right)^2=1.16639(1)\times 10^5\text{GeV}^2$$
(54)
where $`G_F`$ refers to the SM Fermi constant, which is related to other well–measured quantities in the Standard Model as (in the on-shell scheme)

$$G_F=\frac{\pi \alpha }{\sqrt{2}M_W^2(1M_W^2/M_Z^2)(1\mathrm{\Delta }r)}.$$
(55)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ encodes the effect of radiative corrections, which depends on the top quark and the Higgs boson masses. The redefinition of $`G_F`$ from Eq. (54) can be interpreted then as a redefinition of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ parameter; $`\mathrm{\Delta }r\mathrm{\Delta }r+\delta \mathrm{\Delta }r`$, with

$$\delta \mathrm{\Delta }r=8\frac{|f_{e\mu }|^2}{m_h^2}\frac{M_W^2}{g^2}$$
(56)
Analyses indicate that variations in $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ of order 0.002 are acceptable in the Standard Model  . This would translate into a constraint on $`f_{e\mu }`$ which can be found on the first line in Table 3.

It is interesting to note that the $`h^+`$ exchange adds constructively to the muon decay rate. The neutron and the nuclear beta decay rates, on the other hand, are unchanged compared to the Standard Model. The value of the CKM matrix element $`V_{ud}`$ extracted from beta decay measurements will have to be re-interpreted in the present model. We find an upward shift in $`V_{ud}`$ compared to the SM by an amount given by $`|\delta \mathrm{\Delta }r|`$ of Eq. (44). Currently there is a 2.2 sigma anomaly in the unitarity of the first row of the CKM matris: $`|V_{ud}|^2+|V_{us}|^2+|V_{ub}|^2`$ is smaller than by about 2.2 sigma . With $`|\delta \mathrm{\Delta }r|=0.002`$, the upward shift in the value of $`V_{ud}`$ can nicely reconcile this anomaly within this model.

Table 3 also contains constraints on the $`f`$ couplings coming from the widths of semileptonic $`\tau `$ decays (lines 2,3). Since the redefined Fermi constant is used to compute these decays, the constraints are on the differences between the $`f`$ couplings. Line 4 contains the constraint coming from $`e\mu `$ universality in $`\tau `$ decay .

$``$ Neutrinoless double beta decay.

From the approximate forms of the neutrino mass matrix given in Eqs. (18)-(20), it follows that the effective neutrino mass relevant for neutrinoless double beta decay is approximately $`m(\beta \beta 0\nu )m/210^3`$ eV in the hierarchical case as well as in the inverted hierarchical case of Eq. (20). This will be difficult to observe in the near future. On the other hand, in the inverted mass hierarchy of Eq. (19), the effective mass is $`m(\beta \beta 0\nu )M0.05`$ eV, which should be observable in the next round of experiments.

Now, let us look at these constraints in light of the relations among the $`f_{ab}`$ and $`h_{ab}`$ couplings imposed by neutrino masses and mixings results of Sec. III. Consider first the $`f`$ parameters. In the case of hierarchical form for the neutrino mass matrix, from Eqs. (35), (36) we have

$$f_{e\mu }f_{e\tau }\frac{f_{\mu \tau }}{2}.$$
(57)
The strongest constraint on the $`f`$ couplings comes then from the $`\mu e\gamma `$ process. From Table 2 we have

$$\frac{f_{\mu \tau }^2}{2m_h^2}<0.4\times 10^8\text{GeV}^2.$$
(58)
On the other hand, from the last of Eq. (37), we have

$$\frac{8\mu }{(16\pi ^2)^2}\frac{f_{\mu \tau }^2}{m_h^2}\stackrel{~}{I}m_\mu ^2h_{\mu \mu }\frac{M}{2}$$
(59)
with $`M\sqrt{2.5\times 10^3}\text{eV}=5\times 10^{11}\text{GeV}`$ (here we have neglected the contribution of the terms proportional to $`m_e`$). Plugging in the numbers we find

$$m_h10^5\left(\frac{\mu }{m_h}\right)f_{\mu \tau }^2h_{\mu \mu }\stackrel{~}{I}\text{GeV}.$$
(60)
Assume for now that $`m_k`$ is smaller or of the same order as $`m_h`$; then $`\stackrel{~}{I}2`$. Using the upper limits on the $`h`$ couplings and $`\mu /m_h`$ ratio derived in Sect. II, we get the following allowable range for the $`h^+`$ scalar mass:

$$10^4f_{\mu \tau }\text{GeV}<m_h<10^6f_{\mu \tau }^2\text{GeV}.$$
(61)
Here the lower limit comes from the $`\mu e\gamma `$ constraint Eq. (58), while the upper limit comes from the neutrino mass equations above. We see then that when the $`f_{\mu \tau }`$ coupling takes its maximum value (of order unity), the $`h^+`$ scalar will be out of reach of future colliders. However, this is the most unfavorable case; if the $`h,f`$, and $`\mu `$ couplings take values smaller than the highest values admissible, the upper bound on $`m_h`$ moves to lower values. For example, if $`f_{\mu \tau }0.1`$, $`m_h`$ has to be smaller than 10 TeV. Note also that Eqs. (58), (60) impose a lower limit on the strength of the $`f_{\mu \tau },h_{\mu \mu }`$ couplings:

$`f_{\mu \tau }`$ $`>`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{0.1}{h_{\mu \mu }\stackrel{~}{I}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{m_h}}\right)^11.\times 10^2`$ (62)
$`h_{\mu \mu }`$ $`>`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{0.1}{f_{\mu \tau }\stackrel{~}{I}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{m_h}}\right)^11.7\times 10^2.`$ (63)
This requires that $`m_h`$ has to be greater than about 100 GeV. Also, the lower bound on $`h_{\mu \mu }`$ justifies neglecting the $`\omega _{ee},\omega _{e\mu }`$ terms in the neutrino mass matrix; indeed, for the $`\omega _{e\mu }`$ term to be of the same order of magnitude as $`\omega _{\mu \mu }`$, we would need $`h_{e\mu }200\times h_{\mu \mu }`$ which will move the theory into the nonperturbative regime.

We conclude from the preceding discussions that the decay $`\mu e+\gamma `$ should be accessible to the next round of rare decay experiments. Some of the model parameters are already excluded by current limits. For example, if $`m_h1`$ TeV, any value of $`f_{\mu \tau }2\times 10^3`$ will be inconsistent with current limits. There are plans to improve the present limit on $`\mu e+\gamma `$ by several orders of magnitude in the near future . This decay is predicted to be within reach of these improved experiments.

The leptonic phenomenology constraints on the $`h_{ab}`$ coupling constants and the mass of the doubly charged scalar $`m_k`$ are somewhat weaker. All constraints from processes involving the electron can be made to go away by choosing $`h_{ee},h_{e\mu }`$ and/or $`h_{e\tau }`$ to be close to zero (which is allowed by the neutrino masses and mixings pattern). Then, the strongest constraint on the $`h_{ab}/m_k`$ ratio comes from the $`\tau ^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}\mu ^{}`$ process; using Eq. (27) to relate $`h_{\mu \tau }`$ and $`h_{\mu \mu }`$, this constraint reads as

$$\frac{h_{\mu \mu }}{m_k}<1.3\times 10^3\text{GeV}^1$$

which can be easily satisfied without violating the other constraints discussed previously. Note also that it is not required that $`h_{ee},h_{e\mu }`$ and $`h_{e\tau }`$ be close to zero; independent constrains on these quantities from Table 1 and Table 2 are:

$$\frac{|h_{ee}h_{\mu \mu }^{}|}{m_k^2}<\frac{4.\times 10^7}{\text{GeV}^2},\frac{|h_{e\mu }h_{\mu \mu }^{}|}{m_k^2}<\frac{4.\times 10^9}{\text{GeV}^2},\frac{|h_{e\tau }h_{\mu \mu }^{}|}{m_k^2}<\frac{9.\times 10^8}{\text{GeV}^2},$$

allowing any of them to be of the same order of magnitude as $`h_{\mu \mu }`$ (although not both $`h_{ee}`$ and $`h_{e\mu }`$ at the same time).

The bounds on the parameters of this model are more stringent for the inverted mass hierarchy case. In this case $`|f_{e\mu }||f_{e\tau }||f_{\mu \tau }|/\text{sin}\theta _{13}`$ are the larger $`f`$ couplings. In terms of $`f_{e\mu }`$ the bounds on $`m_h`$ can be written:

$$2\sqrt{\text{sin}\theta _{13}}\times 10^4f_{e\mu }\text{GeV}<m_h2\text{sin}^2\theta _{13}\times 10^5\left(\frac{\mu }{m_h}\right)f_{e\mu }^2h_{\mu \mu }\stackrel{~}{I}\text{GeV}$$
(64)
$$2\text{sin}^2\theta _{13}\times 10^6f_{e\mu }^2\text{GeV}$$

with $`f_{e\mu }<1`$. The first inequality comes from the $`\mu e\gamma `$ process in Table II, while the last one comes from the neutrino mass equations (43) (we considered the + case here). Note that the allowed interval is narrower and shifted toward lower values of $`m_h`$. The lower bounds on the $`f_{e\mu }`$ and and $`h_{\mu \mu }`$ in Eqs. (62) are increased by a factor $`1/(\text{sin}\theta _{13})^{3/2}`$. This also imposes a lower bound on the value of the $`\theta _{13}`$ mixing angle:

$$\text{sin}\theta _{13}>0.046$$
(65)
which should be testable in neutrino oscillation experiments. These constraints are relaxed by a factor $`\text{cos}2\theta _{12}(1+4\theta _{13}\text{tan}2\theta _{12})`$ $`(0.44(1+8\theta _{13})`$ for $`\text{tan}^2\theta _{12}=0.4`$) for the $``$ sign in the inverted mass hierarchy case (using Eqs. (46) for the neutrino mass matrix elements).

## V Collider Signals

We now turn to the possible signals coming from the production of the charged scalars at colliders. Consider first the case of hadron colliders. Since the $`h^+`$ and $`k^{++}`$ scalars do not couple directly to the quarks, the production of these particles will proceed through the $`s`$-channel processes: $`q\overline{q}\gamma ^{},Z^{}h^+h^{},k^{++}k^{}`$. The cross-section for these processes, at the 2 TeV Tevatron and at the LHC, are presented in Fig. 4, as a function of the mass of these particles. As can be seen from Fig. 4, the cross-section for the production of the doubly charged scalar $`k^{++}`$ is about four times larger than the one for the production of the singly charged scalar $`h^+`$ (for equal masses). Experimentally, the $`k^{++}`$ is also much easier to see; the hierarchy between the $`h`$ couplings $`h_{\mu \mu }:h_{\mu \tau }:h_{\tau \tau }1:m_\mu /m_\tau :(m_\mu /m_\tau )^2`$ (Eqs. (27,49)) implies that the $`k^{++}`$ will decay predominantly to a same sign muon pair (or electron pair, if $`h_{ee}`$ is of the same order of magnitude as $`h_{\mu \mu }`$). In any case, the experimental signature of 4-lepton final state will be striking. The SM background from $`ZZ`$ production can be greatly reduced by imposing high $`p_T`$ cuts on the transverse momenta of the leptons, and by requiring that the invariant mass of opposite sign lepton pairs be different from the $`Z`$ mass. In Ref. , it has been estimated that as few as 10 events are enough for the discovery of a doubly charged boson which decays mostly to $`e`$ or $`\mu `$ pairs. In this case, the Tevatron Run II will be able to probe up to about 250 GeV with an integrated luminosity of 15 fb<sup>-1</sup>, while the LHC reach will be about 800 GeV with 100 fb<sup>-1</sup>, or 1 TeV with 1 ab<sup>-1</sup> integrated luminosity.

At a hadron collider, the $`s`$-channel production of a $`h^+h^{}`$ pair will be much harder to detect experimentally. The final state of two leptons + missing energy (associated with the neutrinos coming from $`h^+`$ decay) has SM backgrounds coming from $`ZZ,ZW`$ (with one lepton lost) and $`WW`$ production, as well as Drell-Yan production of two leptons with mis–measured energy. $`p_T`$ cuts can be used to reduce the background in this case too, but a more detailed analysis is needed to obtain the hadron collider reach for $`h^+`$ production in this mode. Another interesting possibility would be the production of a single $`h^+`$ through radiation from the $`\nu `$ line in the process $`q\overline{q}^{}l\overline{\nu }_l`$. The final state in this case will be three leptons plus missing $`E_T`$. High $`p_T`$ cuts and cuts on the invariant mass of lepton pairs can be used here too to reduce the SM background (which will come mostly from $`WZ`$ production). However, the production cross section in this case is proportional to the $`f`$ couplings squared. For $`h^+`$ boson masses below 1 TeV, the $`\mu e\gamma `$ constraint Eq. (58) requires that $`f`$ be in the 0.01 - 0.1 range; as a consequence, there will be at most of order tens of single $`h^+`$ events produced at the LHC for any $`h^+`$ mass in the TeV range.

At $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders, $`s`$-channel pair production of singly charged or doubly charged bosons will be limited by the energy of the machine. However, due to the cleanliness of the environment, they will be easy to see, if kinematically accessible. The reach in mass at these machines will therefore be roughly $`\sqrt{s}/2`$. Provided that the $`h_{ee}`$ coupling is large, $`k^{++}`$ can also be singly produced at an $`e^{}e^{}`$ collider. More interesting, though, would be the study of the doubly charged scalar at a muon collider, since the $`h_{\mu \mu }`$ coupling of the $`k^{++}`$ has to be large in this model.

## VI Conclusions

In this paper we have performed a detailed analysis of a specific two–loop neutrino mass model. We have shown that the model can accommodate both the solar and the atmospheric neutrino data, while at the same time satisfying all bounds arising from leptonic phenomenology. While at present there is no conflict with any limit, the model predicts that the rare decays $`\tau 3\mu `$ and $`\mu e+\gamma `$ should be within reach of forthcoming experiments.

Although the model contains two independent coupling matrices, one symmetric and the other antisymmetric, they are well constrained by the current neutrino oscillation data. We have found a simple way of relating these matrices to neutrino oscillation parameters. In particular, we have shown that the relative ratios between the three elements of the antisymmetric coupling matrix $`f`$ are completely determined by the neutrino mixing angles, regardless of the other parameters of the model. Since the contribution of the symmetric couplings $`h_{ab}`$ to the neutrino mass matrix is proportional to the product of the masses of the $`a`$ and $`b`$ charged leptons, only $`h_{\mu \mu },h_{\mu \tau }`$ and $`h_{\tau \tau }`$ are relevant for neutrino oscillations. The facts that the atmospheric mixing angle $`\theta _{23}`$ is close to $`\pi /4`$ and that there is a hierarchy in the solar and atmospheric neutrino mass–splittings fixes the relative ratio between these three parameters to be $`h_{\mu \mu }:h_{\mu \tau }:h_{\tau \tau }1:m_\mu /m_\tau :(m_\mu /m_\tau )^2`$. The fact that $`h_{\mu \mu }`$ is the larger of these may have implications on the search for the doubly charged scalar $`k^{++}`$ in collider experiments.

From the experimental result on the atmospheric neutrino mass splitting and the constraints on the anomalous process $`\mu e\gamma `$, a lower bound of 0.01 on the largest of the $`f`$ and $`h`$ coupling constants has been derived. There are upper bounds on the masses of the charged scalars $`h^+`$ and $`k^{++}`$ as well. For non-maximal values of the Yukawa couplings (for example, $`f_{\mu \tau }h_{\mu \mu }0.1`$) the predicted values for the scalar masses are in the TeV range, which should be probed at the LHC, and perhaps at Run II of the Tevatron.

## Acknowledgments

This work is supported in part by U.S. Department of Energy grants DE-FG03-98ER41076 and DE-FG02-01ER45684 and a grant from the Research Corporation.