Lepton jets and low-mass sterile neutrinos at hadron colliders

Abstract

Sterile neutrinos, if they exist, are potential harbingers for physics beyond the Standard Model. They have the capacity to shed light on our flavor sector, grand unification frameworks, dark matter sector and origins of baryon anti-baryon asymmetry. There have been a few seminal studies that have broached the subject of sterile neutrinos with low, electroweak-scale masses (i.e. $\Lambda_{\text{\tiny{QCD}}} \ll m_{N_R} \ll m_{W^\pm}$) and investigated their reach at hadron colliders using lepton jets. These preliminary studies nevertheless assume background-free scenarios after certain selection criteria which are overly optimistic and untenable in realistic situations. These lead to incorrect projections. The unique signal topology and challenging hadronic environment also make this mass-scale regime ripe for a careful investigation. With the above motivations, we attempt to perform the first systematic study of low, electroweak-scale, right-handed neutrinos at hadron colliders, in this unique signal topology. There are currently no active searches at hadron colliders for sterile neutrino states in this mass range, and we frame the study in the context of the $13\,\rm{TeV}$ high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider and the proposed FCC-hh/SppC $100\,\rm{TeV}$ $pp$-collider.