22 research outputs found
Muon conversion to electron in nuclei in type-I seesaw models
We compute the muon to electron conversion in the type-I seesaw model, as a
function of the right-handed neutrino mixings and masses. The results are
compared with previous computations in the literature. We determine the
definite predictions resulting for the ratios between the muon to electron
conversion rate for a given nucleus and the rate of two other processes which
also involve a mu-e flavour transition: mu -> e gamma and mu -> eee. For a
quasi-degenerate mass spectrum of right-handed neutrino masses -which is the
most natural scenario leading to observable rates- those ratios depend only on
the seesaw mass scale, offering a quite interesting testing ground. In the case
of sterile neutrinos heavier than the electroweak scale, these ratios vanish
typically for a mass scale of order a few TeV. Furthermore, the analysis
performed here is also valid down to very light masses. It turns out that
planned mu -> e conversion experiments would be sensitive to masses as low as 2
MeV. Taking into account other experimental constraints, we show that future mu
-> e conversion experiments will be fully relevant to detect or constrain
sterile neutrino scenarios in the 2 GeV-1000 TeV mass range.Comment: 32 pages 14 figures, references added and some minor precisions;
results unchange
Probing the Type I Seesaw Mechanism with Displaced Vertices at the LHC
The observation of Higgs decays into heavy neutrinos would be strong evidence for new physics associated to neutrino masses. In this work we propose a search for such decays within the Type I seesaw model in the few-GeV mass range via displaced vertices. Using 300 fb−1 of integrated luminosity, at 13 TeV, we explore the region of parameter space where such decays are measurable. We show that, after imposing pseudorapidity cuts, there still exists a region where the number of events is larger than O(10). We also find that conventional triggers can greatly limit the sensitivity of our signal, so we display several relevant kinematical distributions which might aid in the optimization of a dedicated trigger selection
Radiative Corrections to Light Neutrino Masses in Low Scale Type I Seesaw Scenarios and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
We perform a detailed analysis of the one-loop corrections to the light neutrino mass matrix within low scale type I seesaw extensions of the Standard Model and their implications in experimental searches for neutrinoless double beta decay. We show that a sizable contribution to the effective Majorana neutrino mass from the exchange of heavy Majorana neutrinos is always possible, provided one requires a fine-tuned cancellation between the tree-level and one-loop contribution to the light neutrino masses. We quantify the level of fine-tuning as a function of the seesaw parameters and introduce a generalisation of the Casas-Ibarra parametrization of the neutrino Yukawa matrix, which easily allows to include the one-loop corrections to the light neutrino masses. \ua9 2015, The Author(s)