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Abstract

We note that the emerging features of lepton mixing can be reproduced if, with inverted neutrino mass ordering, both the smallest neutrino mass and the $\tau\tau$ element of the neutrino mass matrix vanish. Then, the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle is less than maximal and the Dirac phase $\delta$ is close to $\pi$. We derive the correlations among the mixing parameters and show that there is a large cancellation in the effective mass responsible for neutrinoless $\beta\beta$ decay. Three simple seesaw models leading to our scenario are provided.