Testing a neutrino mass generation mechanism at the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

The Large Hadron Collider could be a discovery machine for the neutrino mass pattern and its Majorana nature in the context of a well-motivated TeV scale Type II seesaw model. This is achieved by identifying the flavor structure of the lepton-number violating decays of the charged Higgs bosons. The observation of either H{sup +}{yields}{tau}{sup +}{nu} or H{sup +}{yields}e{sup +}{nu} will be particularly robust to determine the neutrino spectra since they are independent of the unknown Majorana phases, which could be probed via the H{sup ++}{yields}e{sub i}{sup +}e{sub j}{sup +} decays. In a less favorable scenario when the leptonic channels are suppressed, one needs to observe the decays H{sup +}{yields}W{sup +}H{sub 1} and H{sup +}{yields}tb to confirm the triplet-doublet mixing that implies the Type II relation. The associated production H{sup {+-}}{sup {+-}}H{sup {+-}} is crucial in order to test the triplet nature of the Higgs field.