Geometrical contribution to neutrino mass matrix

Abstract: The dynamics of fermions on curved spacetime requires a spin connection, which contains a part called contorsion, an auxiliary field without dynamics but fully expressible in terms of the axial current density of fermions. Its effect is the appearance of a quartic interaction of all fermions in the action, leading to a nonlinear Dirac equation involving all fermions present. Noting that left and right-chiral fermions may couple to contorsion by different strengths, we show that all fermions gain an effective mass when propagating through fermionic matter. This may have an observable effect on neutrino oscillations. In particular we find that different neutrino flavors can mix even if they have zero rest mass in vacuum, without requiring fields beyond the Standard Model.