Zeroes of the neutrino mass matrix

We assume there to be precisely three left-handed neutrino states whose Majorana masses are generated by an unspecified mechanism. Were CP is conserved, the symmetric neutrino mass matrix M would be real and all six of its distinct entries could be experimentally determined. But CP is not conserved so that M is likely to be complex. As a result, not all nine of its convention-independent real parameters can be determined without an appeal to theory. Thus we examine the possibility that a restricted class of neutrino mass matrices may suffice to describe current data, namely those complex symmetric matrices several of whose entries vanish. We find that there are seven acceptable textures with two independent zeroes, and we explore their contrasting phenomenological implications. Textures with more than two independent zeroes appear to be excluded by experiment. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.