This mechanism serves to explain why the neutrino masses are so small. The matrix is essentially the mass matrix for the neutrinos. The Majorana mass component is comparable to the GUT scale and violates lepton number; while the components Dirac mass , are of order of the much smaller electroweak scale – called the "VEV" below (where VEV stands for Vacuum Expectation Value). The smaller eigenvalue − then leads to a very small neutrino mass, comparable to , which is in qualitative accord with experiments – sometimes regarded as supportive evidence for the framework of Grand Unified Theories.