Fermion number violating effects in low scale leptogenesis

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 the domains of HNL masses that can potentially lead to large lepton asymmetry generation boosting the sterile neutrino dark matter production.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Journal version with corrected misprint

Neutrinoless double β\beta decay and low scale leptogenesis

The extension of the Standard Model by right handed neutrinos with masses in the GeV range can simultaneously explain the observed neutrino masses via the seesaw mechanism and the baryon asymmetry of the universe via leptogenesis. It has previously been claimed that the requirement for successful baryogenesis implies that the rate of neutrinoless double $\beta$ decay in this scenario is always smaller than the standard prediction from light neutrino exchange alone. In contrast, we find that the rate for this process can also be enhanced due to a dominant contribution from heavy neutrino exchange. In a small part of the parameter space it even exceeds the current experimental limit, while the properties of the heavy neutrinos are consistent with all other experimental constraints and the observed baryon asymmetry is reproduced. This implies that neutrinoless double $\beta$ decay experiments have already started to rule out part of the leptogenesis parameter space that is not constrained by any other experiment, and the lepton number violation that is responsible for the origin of baryonic matter in the universe may be observed in the near future.Comment: Discussion extended, figures added; 16 pages, 5 figures; identical to published version up to minor text correction

Parameter space of baryogenesis in the ν\nuMSM

The Standard Model accompanied with two right-handed neutrinos with the masses below the weak scale can explain the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Moreover, this model is at least partially testable in the forthcoming experiments such as NA62, SHiP, and MATHUSLA. The remarkable progress in understanding of various rates entering the kinetic equations describing the asymmetry generation along with considerable improvements of the numerical procedures allow us to perform a comprehensive analysis of the parameter space of the model. We find that the region of parameters leading to the successful baryogenesis is notably larger than it was previously obtained. Our results are presented in a way that they can be readily used for studies of sensitivity of various experiments searching for the right-handed neutrinos responsible for the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We also present a detailed comparison with the studies by other groups.Comment: 42 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables, additional data files could be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1407071; published versio

Heavy neutrino search in accelerator-based experiments

We explore the feasibility of detecting heavy neutrinos by the existing facilities of neutrino experiments. A heavy neutrino in the mass range 1 MeV < M < 500 MeV is produced by pion or kaon decay, and decays to charged particles which leave signals in neutrino detectors. Taking the T2K experiment as a typical example, we estimate the heavy neutrino flux produced in the neutrino beam line. Due to massive nature of the heavy neutrino, the spectrum of the heavy neutrino is significantly different from that of the ordinary neutrinos. While the ordinary neutrinos are emitted to various directions in the laboratory frame due to their tiny masses, the heavy neutrinos tend to be emitted to the forward directions and frequently hit the detector.The sensitivity for the mixing parameters is studied by evaluating the number of signal events in the near detector ND280. For the electron-type mixing, the sensitivity of T2K at 10^{21} POT is found to be better than that of the previous experiment PS191, which has placed the most stringent bounds on the mixing parameters of the heavy neutrinos for 140 MeV< M < 500 MeV.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figure

On neutrinoless double beta decay in the ν\nuMSM

We consider the neutrinoless double beta ($0\nu \beta \beta$) decay in the so-called $\nu$MSM, in which three right-handed neutrinos with masses below the electroweak scale are additionally introduced to the Standard Model. In this model there appear three heavy neutral leptons $N_1$, $N_2$, and $N_3$ corresponding to right-handed neutrinos. It has been known that the lightest one $N_1$ with keV mass, which is a candidate for dark matter, gives a negligible contribution to the $0 \nu \beta \beta$ decay. By contrast, the heavier ones $N_2$ and $N_3$, which are responsible to the seesaw mechanism of neutrino masses and baryogenesis, give the destructive contribution (compared with one from active neutrinos). This is because their mass degeneracy at high precision has been assumed, which is expected by analytical studies of baryogengesis. In this analysis, we find that the effective mass of the $0\nu \beta \beta$ decay becomes larger than one from active neutrinos due to the $N_2$ and $N_3$ constructive contribution when the mass difference becomes larger and the mass ordering of active neutrinos is inverted. Such a possibility will be explored by the current and near future experiments of the $0 \nu \beta \beta$ decay.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, v2: published version to appear in Physics Letters

Initial condition for baryogenesis via neutrino oscillation

We consider a baryogenesis scenario via the oscillation of right-handed neutrinos with Majorana masses of the order of GeV, which are also responsible for neutrino masses by the seesaw mechanism. We study how the initial condition alters the prediction of the present baryon asymmetry by this mechanism. It is usually assumed that the abundance of right-handed neutrinos is zero after the reheating of the inflationary universe and they are produced in scattering processes by the renomalizable Yukawa interaction. However, the higher-dimensional operator with right-handed neutrinos may provide an additional production which is most effective at the reheating epoch. It is shown that such an initial abundance of right-handed neutrinos can significantly modify the prediction when the strong washout of the asymmetry is absent. This leads to the parameter space of the model for the successful baryogenesis being enlarged.Comment: 24 pages, 35 figures, v2; correspond to published versio