Low-scale seesaw variants protected by lepton number symmetry provide a natural explanation of the smallness of neutrino masses but, unlike their higher-scale counterparts, with potentially testable phenomenology. The approximate lepton number symmetry arranges the heavy neutrinos in pseudo-Dirac pairs, which might be accessible at collider or even beam dump experiments if their mass is low enough and their mixing with the active neutrinos sufficiently large. Despite their pseudo-Dirac nature, their small mass splittings may lead to oscillations that prevent the cancellation of their potential lepton-number-violating signals. Interestingly, these small splittings may also resonantly enhance the production of a lepton number asymmetry for low-scale leptogenesis scenarios or, for extremely degenerate states, lead to an asymmetry large enough to resonantly produce a keV sterile neutrino dark matter candidate with the correct relic abundance via the Shi-Fuller mechanism. In this work we explore the parameter space of the different low-scale seesaw mechanisms and study the size of these splittings, given their important and interesting phenomenological consequences. While all low-scale seesaw variants share the same dimension 5 and 6 operators when integrating out the heavy states, we point out that the mass splitting of the pseudo-Dirac pairs are very different in different realizations such as the inverse or linear seesaw. This different phenomenology could offer a way to discriminate between low-scale seesaw realizations.
We discuss the potential to observe lepton number violation (LNV) in displaced vertex searches for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) at future lepton colliders. Even though a direct detection of LNV is impossible for the dominant production channel because lepton number is carried away by an unobservable neutrino, there are several signatures of LNV that can be searched for. They include the angular distribution and spectrum of decay products as well as the HNL lifetime. We comment on the perspectives to observe LNV in realistic neutrino mass models and argue that the dichotomy of Dirac vs Majorana…
SHiP is a proposed high-intensity beam dump experiment set to operate at the CERN SPS. It is expected to have an unprecedented sensitivity to a variety of models containing feebly interacting particles, such as Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs). Two HNLs or more could successfully explain the observed neutrino masses through the seesaw mechanism. If, in addition, they are quasi-degenerate, they could be responsible for the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Depending on their mass splitting, HNLs can have very different phenomenologies: they can behave as Majorana fermions -- with lepton number viol…
Heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) are hypothetical particles able to explain several puzzles of fundamental physics, first and foremost - neutrino oscillations. Being sterile with respect to Standard Model interactions, these particles admit Majorana masses, allowing for violation of the total lepton number. Lepton number violating (LNV) processes thus become a key signature of HNLs, pursued by many experiments. In this work, we demonstrate that if HNLs are the sole origin of neutrino masses, destructive interference between Majorana states suppresses the same-sign di-lepton signal. In the phenomen…
Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University（京都大学汤川理论物理研究所）；Northwestern University（西北大学）；Argonne National Laboratory（阿贡国家实验室）；Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics（亚太理论物理中心）；Pohang University of Science and Technology（韩国科学技术院）
The existence of baryon asymmetry and dark matter in the Universe may be related to CP-violating reactions of three heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) with masses well below the Fermi scale. The dynamical description of the lepton asymmetry generation, which is the key ingredient of baryogenesis and of dark matter production, is quite complicated due to the presence of many different relaxation time scales and the necessity to include quantum-mechanical coherent effects in HNL oscillations. We derive kinetic equations accounting for fermion number violating effects missed so far and identify one of …
We explore the possibility of lepton number violation (LNV) manifesting in the rare kaon decay $K\toπνν$, and its consequences for radiative neutrino mass generation and the washout of Lepton asymmetry in high-scale leptogenesis scenarios. We perform the analysis in a model-independent framework, the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT), and discuss the possible LNV nature of the rare kaon decay in the context of the currently operating NA62 experiment at CERN. We find that, in case of a LNV interaction, its detection would put high-scale leptogenesis under tension and would hint to s…
We investigate the possibility to probe lepton number violating (LNV) operators in the rare kaon decay $K\toπνν$. Performing the analysis in the Standard Model effective field theory with only light active Majorana neutrinos, we determine the current limits on the corresponding LNV physics scale from the past E949 experiment at BNL as well as the currently operating experiments NA62 at CERN and KOTO at J-PARC. We focus on the specific signature of scalar currents in $K\toπνν$ arising from the LNV nature of the operators and study the effect on the experimental sensitivity, stressing the need f…
Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Cries for GeV Heavy Neutral Leptons
Université catholique de Louvain（天主教鲁汶大学）；Technische Universität München（慕尼黑工业大学）；University of Tokyo（东京大学）；University of Zagreb（萨格勒布大学）；École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院）；University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学）
We revisit the generation of a matter-antimatter asymmetry in the minimal extension of the Standard Model with two singlet heavy neutral leptons (HNL) that can explain neutrino masses. We derive an accurate analytical approximation to the solution of the complete linearized set of kinetic equations, which exposes the non-trivial parameter dependencies in the form of parameterization-independent CP invariants. The identification of various washout regimes relevant in different regions of parameter space sheds light on the relevance of the mass corrections in the interaction rates and clarifies …
Knowledge of the mechanism of neutrino mass generation would help understand a lot more about Lepton Number Violation (LNV), the cosmological evolution of the Universe, or the evolu tion of astronomical objects. Here we propose a verifiable and viable extension of the Standard model for neutrino mass generation, with a low-scale seesaw mechanism via LNV condensation in the sector of sterile neutrinos. To prove the concept, we analyze a simplified model of just one single family of elementary particles and check it against a set of phenomenological constraints coming from electroweak symmetry b…
Some models of leptogenesis involve a quasi-degenerate pair of heavy neutrinos $N_{1,2}$ whose masses can be small, $O({\rm GeV})$. Such neutrinos can contribute to the rare lepton-number-violating (LNV) decay $W^\pm \to \ell_1^\pm \ell_2^\pm (q'{\bar q})^\mp$. If both $N_1$ and $N_2$ contribute, there can be a CP-violating rate difference between the LNV decay of a $W^-$ and its CP-conjugate decay. In this paper, we examine the prospects for measuring such a CP asymmetry $A_{\rm CP}$ at the LHC. We assume a value for the heavy-light neutrino mixing parameter $|B_{\ell N}|^2 = 10^{-5}$, which …
Sensitivity prospects for lepton-trijet signals in the $ν$SMEFT at the LHeC
Instituto de Física de Mar del Plata (IFIMAR) CONICET, UNMDP（马德普拉塔物理研究所 (IFIMAR) 阿根廷国家科学研究委员会，马德普拉塔国立大学）；Instituto de Física La Plata (IFLP) CONICET, UNLP（拉普拉塔物理研究所 (IFLP) 阿根廷国家科学研究委员会，拉普拉塔国立大学）；Instituto de Física, Facultad Ingeniería, Universidad de la República（共和国大学工程学院物理研究所）；Departamento de Física, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata（马德普拉塔国立大学物理系）；Instituto de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República（共和国大学理学院物理研究所）
