Abstract
We discuss the prospects of studying lepton number violating processes in order to identify Majorana neutrinos from low scale seesaw mechanisms at lepton–proton colliders. In particular, we consider the scenarios of colliding electrons with LHC energy protons and, motivated by the efforts towards the construction of a muon collider, the prospects of muon–proton collisions. We find that present constraints on the mixing of the Majorana neutrinos still allow for a detectable signal at these kind of facilities given the smallness of the Standard Model background. We discuss possible cuts in order to further increase the signal over background ratio and the prospects of reconstructing the neutrino mass from the kinematics of the final state particles.
Highlights
The first light of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has marked the beginning of a new era of high-energy collider physics
We find that present constraints on the mixing of the Majorana neutrinos still allow for a detectable signal at these kind of facilities given the smallness of the Standard Model background
While in low scale seesaw mechanisms this smallness is due to a cancellation of different large contributions, this very same cancellation will suppress any lepton number violating signal unless the energy probed in the process is such that some particular contributions are enhanced or suppressed due to kinematics
Summary
The first light of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has marked the beginning of a new era of high-energy collider physics. Any search for processes violating lepton number will typically have a signal suppressed by the tiny neutrino masses [26, 27]. While in low scale seesaw mechanisms this smallness is due to a cancellation of different large contributions, this very same cancellation will suppress any lepton number violating signal unless the energy probed in the process is such that some particular contributions are enhanced or suppressed due to kinematics. Collider experiments, and proton-lepton colliders in particular can, unlike 0νββ searches, produce these neutrinos on-shell via s-channel contributions with the consequent enhancement of the signal.
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