Abstract
Interest in searches for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) at the LHC has increased considerably in the past few years. In the minimal scenario, HNLs are produced and decay via their mixing with active neutrinos in the Standard Model (SM) spectrum. However, many SM extensions with HNLs have been discussed in the literature, which sometimes change expectations for LHC sensitivities drastically. In the NRSMEFT, one extends the SM effective field theory with operators including SM singlet fermions, which allows to study HNL phenomenology in a “model independent” way. In this paper, we study the sensitivity of ATLAS to HNLs in the NRSMEFT for four-fermion operators with a single HNL. These operators might dominate both production and decay of HNLs, and we find that new physics scales in excess of 20 TeV could be probed at the high-luminosity LHC.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
J. Alimena et al., Searching for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider, J. Phys. G 47 (2020) 090501 [arXiv:1903.04497] [INSPIRE].
L. Lee, C. Ohm, A. Soffer and T.-T. Yu, Collider searches for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 106 (2019) 210 [arXiv:1810.12602] [INSPIRE].
D. Curtin et al., Long-lived particles at the energy frontier: the MATHUSLA physics case, Rept. Prog. Phys. 82 (2019) 116201 [arXiv:1806.07396] [INSPIRE].
P. Minkowski, μ → eγ at a rate of one out of 109 muon decays?, Phys. Lett. B 67 (1977) 421 [INSPIRE].
T. Yanagida, Horizontal gauge symmetry and masses of neutrinos, Conf. Proc. C 7902131 (1979) 95 [INSPIRE].
M. Gell-Mann, P. Ramond and R. Slansky, Complex spinors and unified theories, Conf. Proc. C 790927 (1979) 315 [arXiv:1306.4669] [INSPIRE].
R. N. Mohapatra and G. Senjanović, Neutrino mass and spontaneous parity nonconservation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 44 (1980) 912 [INSPIRE].
J. Schechter and J. W. F. Valle, Neutrino masses in SU(2) × U(1) theories, Phys. Rev. D 22 (1980) 2227 [INSPIRE].
P. F. de Salas et al., 2020 global reassessment of the neutrino oscillation picture, JHEP 02 (2021) 071 [arXiv:2006.11237] [INSPIRE].
F. Capozzi, E. Di Valentino, E. Lisi, A. Marrone, A. Melchiorri and A. Palazzo, Unfinished fabric of the three neutrino paradigm, Phys. Rev. D 104 (2021) 083031 [arXiv:2107.00532] [INSPIRE].
I. Esteban, M. C. Gonzalez-Garcia, M. Maltoni, T. Schwetz and A. Zhou, The fate of hints: updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations, JHEP 09 (2020) 178 [arXiv:2007.14792] [INSPIRE].
R. N. Mohapatra and J. W. F. Valle, Neutrino mass and baryon number nonconservation in superstring models, Phys. Rev. D 34 (1986) 1642 [INSPIRE].
J. Bernabeu, A. Santamaria, J. Vidal, A. Mendez and J. W. F. Valle, Lepton flavor nonconservation at high-energies in a superstring inspired Standard Model, Phys. Lett. B 187 (1987) 303 [INSPIRE].
E. K. Akhmedov, M. Lindner, E. Schnapka and J. W. F. Valle, Left-right symmetry breaking in NJL approach, Phys. Lett. B 368 (1996) 270 [hep-ph/9507275] [INSPIRE].
E. K. Akhmedov, M. Lindner, E. Schnapka and J. W. F. Valle, Dynamical left-right symmetry breaking, Phys. Rev. D 53 (1996) 2752 [hep-ph/9509255] [INSPIRE].
R. N. Mohapatra and J. C. Pati, Left-right gauge symmetry and an isoconjugate model of CP-violation, Phys. Rev. D 11 (1975) 566 [INSPIRE].
G. Senjanović and R. N. Mohapatra, Exact left-right symmetry and spontaneous violation of parity, Phys. Rev. D 12 (1975) 1502 [INSPIRE].
I. Brivio and M. Trott, The Standard Model as an effective field theory, Phys. Rept. 793 (2019) 1 [arXiv:1706.08945] [INSPIRE].
J. Ellis, M. Madigan, K. Mimasu, V. Sanz and T. You, Top, Higgs, diboson and electroweak fit to the Standard Model effective field theory, JHEP 04 (2021) 279 [arXiv:2012.02779] [INSPIRE].
SMEFiT collaboration, Combined SMEFT interpretation of Higgs, diboson, and top quark data from the LHC, JHEP 11 (2021) 089 [arXiv:2105.00006] [INSPIRE].
F. del Aguila, S. Bar-Shalom, A. Soni and J. Wudka, Heavy Majorana neutrinos in the effective Lagrangian description: application to hadron colliders, Phys. Lett. B 670 (2009) 399 [arXiv:0806.0876] [INSPIRE].
A. Aparici, K. Kim, A. Santamaria and J. Wudka, Right-handed neutrino magnetic moments, Phys. Rev. D 80 (2009) 013010 [arXiv:0904.3244] [INSPIRE].
S. Bhattacharya and J. Wudka, Dimension-seven operators in the Standard Model with right handed neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 94 (2016) 055022 [Erratum ibid. 95 (2017) 039904] [arXiv:1505.05264] [INSPIRE].
Y. Liao and X.-D. Ma, Operators up to dimension seven in Standard Model effective field theory extended with sterile neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 96 (2017) 015012 [arXiv:1612.04527] [INSPIRE].
H.-L. Li, Z. Ren, M.-L. Xiao, J.-H. Yu and Y.-H. Zheng, Operator bases in effective field theories with sterile neutrinos: d ≤ 9, JHEP 11 (2021) 003 [arXiv:2105.09329] [INSPIRE].
M. Chala and A. Titov, One-loop matching in the SMEFT extended with a sterile neutrino, JHEP 05 (2020) 139 [arXiv:2001.07732] [INSPIRE].
M. Chala and A. Titov, One-loop running of dimension-six Higgs-neutrino operators and implications of a large neutrino dipole moment, JHEP 09 (2020) 188 [arXiv:2006.14596] [INSPIRE].
A. Datta, J. Kumar, H. Liu and D. Marfatia, Anomalous dimensions from gauge couplings in SMEFT with right-handed neutrinos, JHEP 02 (2021) 015 [arXiv:2010.12109] [INSPIRE].
A. Datta, J. Kumar, H. Liu and D. Marfatia, Anomalous dimensions from Yukawa couplings in SMNEFT: four-fermion operators, JHEP 05 (2021) 037 [arXiv:2103.04441] [INSPIRE].
I. Bischer and W. Rodejohann, General neutrino interactions from an effective field theory perspective, Nucl. Phys. B 947 (2019) 114746 [arXiv:1905.08699] [INSPIRE].
J. Alcaide, S. Banerjee, M. Chala and A. Titov, Probes of the Standard Model effective field theory extended with a right-handed neutrino, JHEP 08 (2019) 031 [arXiv:1905.11375] [INSPIRE].
J. M. Butterworth, M. Chala, C. Englert, M. Spannowsky and A. Titov, Higgs phenomenology as a probe of sterile neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 100 (2019) 115019 [arXiv:1909.04665] [INSPIRE].
A. Biekötter, M. Chala and M. Spannowsky, The effective field theory of low scale see-saw at colliders, Eur. Phys. J. C 80 (2020) 743 [arXiv:2007.00673] [INSPIRE].
W. Dekens, J. de Vries, K. Fuyuto, E. Mereghetti and G. Zhou, Sterile neutrinos and neutrinoless double beta decay in effective field theory, JHEP 06 (2020) 097 [arXiv:2002.07182] [INSPIRE].
T. Han, J. Liao, H. Liu and D. Marfatia, Scalar and tensor neutrino interactions, JHEP 07 (2020) 207 [arXiv:2004.13869] [INSPIRE].
T. Li, X.-D. Ma and M. A. Schmidt, General neutrino interactions with sterile neutrinos in light of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering and meson invisible decays, JHEP 07 (2020) 152 [arXiv:2005.01543] [INSPIRE].
T. Li, X.-D. Ma and M. A. Schmidt, Constraints on the charged currents in general neutrino interactions with sterile neutrinos, JHEP 10 (2020) 115 [arXiv:2007.15408] [INSPIRE].
J. De Vries, H. K. Dreiner, J. Y. Günther, Z. S. Wang and G. Zhou, Long-lived sterile neutrinos at the LHC in effective field theory, JHEP 03 (2021) 148 [arXiv:2010.07305] [INSPIRE].
G. Cottin, J. C. Helo, M. Hirsch, A. Titov and Z. S. Wang, Heavy neutral leptons in effective field theory and the high-luminosity LHC, JHEP 09 (2021) 039 [arXiv:2105.13851] [INSPIRE].
A. Caputo, P. Hernández, J. Lopez-Pavon and J. Salvado, The seesaw portal in testable models of neutrino masses, JHEP 06 (2017) 112 [arXiv:1704.08721] [INSPIRE].
D. Barducci, E. Bertuzzo, A. Caputo, P. Hernández and B. Mele, The see-saw portal at future Higgs factories, JHEP 03 (2021) 117 [arXiv:2011.04725] [INSPIRE].
J. P. Chou, D. Curtin and H. J. Lubatti, New detectors to explore the lifetime frontier, Phys. Lett. B 767 (2017) 29 [arXiv:1606.06298] [INSPIRE].
MATHUSLA collaboration, An update to the letter of intent for MATHUSLA: search for long-lived particles at the HL-LHC, arXiv:2009.01693 [INSPIRE].
V. V. Gligorov, S. Knapen, M. Papucci and D. J. Robinson, Searching for long-lived particles: a compact detector for exotics at LHCb, Phys. Rev. D 97 (2018) 015023 [arXiv:1708.09395] [INSPIRE].
V. V. Gligorov, S. Knapen, B. Nachman, M. Papucci and D. J. Robinson, Leveraging the ALICE/L3 cavern for long-lived particle searches, Phys. Rev. D 99 (2019) 015023 [arXiv:1810.03636] [INSPIRE].
J. L. Feng, I. Galon, F. Kling and S. Trojanowski, ForwArd Search ExpeRiment at the LHC, Phys. Rev. D 97 (2018) 035001 [arXiv:1708.09389] [INSPIRE].
M. Bauer, O. Brandt, L. Lee and C. Ohm, ANUBIS: proposal to search for long-lived neutral particles in CERN service shafts, arXiv:1909.13022 [INSPIRE].
J. C. Helo, M. Hirsch and Z. S. Wang, Heavy neutral fermions at the high-luminosity LHC, JHEP 07 (2018) 056 [arXiv:1803.02212] [INSPIRE].
D. Dercks, H. K. Dreiner, M. Hirsch and Z. S. Wang, Long-lived fermions at AL3X, Phys. Rev. D 99 (2019) 055020 [arXiv:1811.01995] [INSPIRE].
M. Hirsch and Z. S. Wang, Heavy neutral leptons at ANUBIS, Phys. Rev. D 101 (2020) 055034 [arXiv:2001.04750] [INSPIRE].
G. Zhou, J. Y. Günther, Z. S. Wang, J. de Vries and H. K. Dreiner, Long-lived sterile neutrinos at Belle II in effective field theory, arXiv:2111.04403 [INSPIRE].
G. Cottin, J. C. Helo and M. Hirsch, Displaced vertices as probes of sterile neutrino mixing at the LHC, Phys. Rev. D 98 (2018) 035012 [arXiv:1806.05191] [INSPIRE].
S. Weinberg, Baryon and lepton nonconserving processes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43 (1979) 1566 [INSPIRE].
B. Grzadkowski, M. Iskrzynski, M. Misiak and J. Rosiek, Dimension-six terms in the Standard Model Lagrangian, JHEP 10 (2010) 085 [arXiv:1008.4884] [INSPIRE].
N. D. Christensen and C. Duhr, FeynRules — Feynman rules made easy, Comput. Phys. Commun. 180 (2009) 1614 [arXiv:0806.4194] [INSPIRE].
A. Alloul, N. D. Christensen, C. Degrande, C. Duhr and B. Fuks, FeynRules 2.0 — a complete toolbox for tree-level phenomenology, Comput. Phys. Commun. 185 (2014) 2250 [arXiv:1310.1921] [INSPIRE].
C. Degrande, C. Duhr, B. Fuks, D. Grellscheid, O. Mattelaer and T. Reiter, UFO — the Universal FeynRules Output, Comput. Phys. Commun. 183 (2012) 1201 [arXiv:1108.2040] [INSPIRE].
J. Alwall, M. Herquet, F. Maltoni, O. Mattelaer and T. Stelzer, MadGraph 5: going beyond, JHEP 06 (2011) 128 [arXiv:1106.0522] [INSPIRE].
J. Alwall et al., The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations, JHEP 07 (2014) 079 [arXiv:1405.0301] [INSPIRE].
ATLAS collaboration, Search for massive, long-lived particles using multitrack displaced vertices or displaced lepton pairs in pp collisions at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector, Phys. Rev. D 92 (2015) 072004 [arXiv:1504.05162] [INSPIRE].
ATLAS collaboration, Search for long-lived, massive particles in events with displaced vertices and missing transverse momentum in \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector, Phys. Rev. D 97 (2018) 052012 [arXiv:1710.04901] [INSPIRE].
T. Sjöstrand et al., An introduction to PYTHIA 8.2, Comput. Phys. Commun. 191 (2015) 159 [arXiv:1410.3012] [INSPIRE].
M. Cacciari, G. P. Salam and G. Soyez, FastJet user manual, Eur. Phys. J. C 72 (2012) 1896 [arXiv:1111.6097] [INSPIRE].
G. Cottin, J. C. Helo and M. Hirsch, Searches for light sterile neutrinos with multitrack displaced vertices, Phys. Rev. D 97 (2018) 055025 [arXiv:1801.02734] [INSPIRE].
C. Degrande, O. Mattelaer, R. Ruiz and J. Turner, Fully-automated precision predictions for heavy neutrino production mechanisms at hadron colliders, Phys. Rev. D 94 (2016) 053002 [arXiv:1602.06957] [INSPIRE].
ATLAS collaboration, Search for heavy neutral leptons in decays of W bosons produced in 13 TeV pp collisions using prompt and displaced signatures with the ATLAS detector, JHEP 10 (2019) 265 [arXiv:1905.09787] [INSPIRE].
CMS collaboration, Search for heavy neutral leptons in events with three charged leptons in proton-proton collisions at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120 (2018) 221801 [arXiv:1802.02965] [INSPIRE].
CMS collaboration, Search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons with displaced vertices in pp collisions at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV with the CMS detector, Tech. Rep. CMS-PAS-EXO-20-009, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland (2021).
DELPHI collaboration, Search for neutral heavy leptons produced in Z decays, Z. Phys. C 74 (1997) 57 [Erratum ibid. 75 (1997) 580] [INSPIRE].
LHCb collaboration, Search for massive long-lived particles decaying semileptonically in the LHCb detector, Eur. Phys. J. C 77 (2017) 224 [arXiv:1612.00945] [INSPIRE].
S. Antusch, E. Cazzato and O. Fischer, Sterile neutrino searches via displaced vertices at LHCb, Phys. Lett. B 774 (2017) 114 [arXiv:1706.05990] [INSPIRE].
M. Drewes and J. Hajer, Heavy neutrinos in displaced vertex searches at the LHC and HL-LHC, JHEP 02 (2020) 070 [arXiv:1903.06100] [INSPIRE].
S. Davidson, D. C. Bailey and B. A. Campbell, Model independent constraints on leptoquarks from rare processes, Z. Phys. C 61 (1994) 613 [hep-ph/9309310] [INSPIRE].
Particle Data Group collaboration, Review of particle physics, PTEP 2020 (2020) 083C01 [INSPIRE].
CMS collaboration, Search for pair production of first-generation scalar leptoquarks at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV, Phys. Rev. D 99 (2019) 052002 [arXiv:1811.01197] [INSPIRE].
CMS collaboration, Search for dark matter in events with a leptoquark and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, Phys. Lett. B 795 (2019) 76 [arXiv:1811.10151] [INSPIRE].
CMS collaboration, Searches for physics beyond the standard model with the MT2 variable in hadronic final states with and without disappearing tracks in proton-proton collisions at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV, Eur. Phys. J. C 80 (2020) 3 [arXiv:1909.03460] [INSPIRE].
ATLAS collaboration, Search for scalar leptoquarks in pp collisions at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV with the ATLAS experiment, New J. Phys. 18 (2016) 093016 [arXiv:1605.06035] [INSPIRE].
ATLAS collaboration, Search for pairs of scalar leptoquarks decaying into quarks and electrons or muons in \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector, JHEP 10 (2020) 112 [arXiv:2006.05872] [INSPIRE].
CMS collaboration, Search for long-lived particles that decay into final states containing two electrons or two muons in proton-proton collisions at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 8 TeV, Phys. Rev. D 91 (2015) 052012 [arXiv:1411.6977] [INSPIRE].
CMS collaboration, Search for long-lived particles decaying to leptons with large impact parameter in proton-proton collisions at \( \sqrt{s} \) = 13 TeV, arXiv:2110.04809 [INSPIRE].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
ArXiv ePrint: 2110.15096
Rights and permissions
Open Access . This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Beltrán, R., Cottin, G., Helo, J.C. et al. Long-lived heavy neutral leptons at the LHC: four-fermion single-NR operators. J. High Energ. Phys. 2022, 44 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2022)044
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2022)044