Left-right symmetry and neutrino stability

Abstract We consider a left-right symmetric model in which neutrinos acquire mass due to the spontaneous violation of both the gauged B − L and a global U (1) symmetry broken by the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of a gauge singlet scalar boson 〈σ〉. For suitable choices of 〈σ〉 consistent with all laboratory and astrophysical observations neutrinos will be unstable against majoron emission. All neutrino masses in the keV to MeV range are possible, since the expected neutrino decay lifetimes can be short enough to dilute their relic density below the cosmologically required level. A wide variety of possible new phenomena, associated to the presence of left-right symmetry and/or the global symmetry at the TeV scale, could therefore be observable, without conflict with cosmology. The latter includes the possibility of invisibly decaying higgs bosons, which can be searched at LEP, NLC and LHC.