Neutrino Mass Matrices with Two Texture Zeros and Near Maximal Atmospheric Neutrino Mixing

In the flavor basis, we study the implications of large value of the effective Majorana neutrino mass (\(|M_{ee}|\)) for a class of two texture zero neutrino mass matrices. We find that these textures predict near maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing angle (\(\theta _{23}\)) when supplemented with the assumption of a large value of \(|M_{ee}|\). This feature is found to be independent of the values of solar and reactor neutrino mixing angles (\(\theta _{12}\) and \(\theta _{13}\)). The assumption of a large value of |Mee| is well motivated from the ongoing and forthcoming neutrino experiments searching for this parameter. These textures have been realised using the discrete Abelian group \(Z_3\). At the one loop level, these texture structures remain stable under renormalization group running of the neutrino mass matrix from seesaw scale to the electroweak scale.