Extended scotogenic model of neutrino mass and proton decay

The current article presents an extension of the classical scotogenic neutrino mass paradigm, where the three issues in particle physics: dark matter, smallness of neutrino mass, and stability of the proton are interconnected. The scenario encompasses the neutrino mass as well as the proton decay as a consequence of an existence of the dark matter. The study successfully achieves the correlation between the naturally small neutrino masses and naturally long proton lifetime in the present paradigm. Furthermore, all relevant cosmological, collider, and flavor physics constraints are incorporated in the detailed analysis. The scotogenic fermionic dark matter with the mass in the range from 100 GeV to 10 TeV successfully satisfies all relevant constraints. The valid range of <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mn>2.51</a:mn><a:mo>×</a:mo><a:msup><a:mn>10</a:mn><a:mrow><a:mo>−</a:mo><a:mn>5</a:mn></a:mrow></a:msup><a:mo>&lt;</a:mo><a:mi>λ</a:mi><a:mo>&lt;</a:mo><a:mn>2</a:mn><a:mo>×</a:mo><a:msup><a:mn>10</a:mn><a:mrow><a:mo>−</a:mo><a:mn>3</a:mn></a:mrow></a:msup></a:math> is obtained for the 2HDM <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><c:mi>λ</c:mi></c:math> coupling. We give a brief discussion, as well as outline some of the future prospects. Published by the American Physical Society 2024