Dark energy and right-handed neutrinos

We explore the possibility that a CP violating phase of the neutrino mass matrix is promoted to a pseudo-Goldstone-boson field and is identified as the quintessence field for Dark Energy. By requiring that the quintessence potential be calculable from a Lagrangian, and that the extreme flatness of the potential be stable under radiative corrections, we are led to an essentially unique model. Lepton number is violated only by Majorana masses of light right-handed neutrinos, comparable to the Dirac masses that mix right- with left-handed neutrinos. We outline the rich and constrained neutrino phenomenology that results from this proposal. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.