Tritium beta decay, neutrino mass matrices, and interactions beyond the standard model

The interference of charge changing interactions, weaker than the V-A standard model (SM) interaction and having a different Lorentz structure, with that SM interaction, can, in principle, produce effects near the end point of the tritium beta decay spectrum which are of a different character from those produced by the purely kinematic effect of neutrino mass expected in the simplest extension of the SM. We show that the existence of more than one mass eigenstate can lead to interference effects at the end point that are stronger than those occurring over the entire spectrum. We discuss these effects both for the special case of Dirac neutrinos and the more general case of Majorana neutrinos and show that, for the present precision of the experiments, one formula should suffice to express the interference effects in all cases. Implications for sterile neutrinos are noted.