Lepton Number Violating Processes Research Articles

Measuring lepton number violation in heavy neutral lepton decays at the future muon collider

The future muon collider has the potential to discover feebly interacting particles in a wide range of masses above the electroweak scale. It is particularly suitable to search for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs), as their production cross section σ∼mW−2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\sigma \\sim {m}_W^{-2} $$\\end{document} is not suppressed by the new physics scale. We demonstrate that with the capacity to observe up to 105 events in the previously unexplored TeV mass range, the muon collider provides the means to measure the fraction of lepton number violating (LNV) processes with precision at the level of a percent. This capability enables elucidating the nature of HNLs, allowing us to differentiate between Majorana, Dirac, and non-minimal scenarios featuring multiple degenerate HNLs. We link the observed fraction of LNV processes to the parameters of the model with three degenerate HNLs, which could be responsible for generating baryon asymmetry in the Universe. Additionally, we present a simple estimate for the number of signal events, as well as analyze the feasibility of vector boson fusion processes in searches for HNLs.

Searching for heavy neutral lepton and lepton number violation through VBS at high-energy muon colliders

High-energy muon collider can play as an emitter of electroweak gauge bosons and thus leads to substantial vector boson scattering (VBS) processes. In this work, we investigate the production of heavy neutral lepton (HNL) N and lepton number violation (LNV) signature through VBS at high-energy muon colliders. VBS induces LNV processes W±Z/γ → ℓ±N → ℓ±ℓ±W∓ → ℓ±ℓ±qq¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ q\\overline{q} $$\\end{document}′ with an on-shell HNL N at μ+μ− colliders. In analogy to neutrinoless double-beta decay with the HNL in t-channel, the LNV signature W+W+ → ℓ+ℓ+ can also happen via VBS at same-sign muon collider. They provide clean and robust LNV signatures to tell the nature of Majorana HNLs and thus have more advantageous benefits than direct μμ annihilation. We analyze the potential of searching for Majorana HNL and obtain the exclusion limits on mixing VℓN. Based on this same-sign lepton signature, we also obtain the sensitivity of muon collider to the Weinberg operator.

Search for heavy Majorana neutrinos at future lepton colliders* *Supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12235008, 11875179), and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, China (ZR2021QA040)

A nonzero neutrino mass may be a sign of new physics beyond the standard model (SM). To explain the small neutrino mass, we can extend the SM using right-handed Majorana neutrinos in a low-scale seesaw mechanism, and the CP violation effect can be induced due to the CP phase in the interference of heavy Majorana neutrinos. The existence of heavy Majorana neutrinos may lead to lepton number violation processes, which can be used to search for the signals of heavy Majorana neutrinos. In this paper, we focus on the CP violation effect related to two generations of heavy Majorana neutrinos at GeV GeV in the pair production of W bosons and rare decays. It is valuable to investigate Majorana neutrino production signals and the related CP violation effects in rare W boson decays at future lepton colliders.

Probing heavy triplet leptons of the type-III seesaw mechanism at future muon colliders

We study the search potential of heavy triplet leptons in a type-III seesaw mechanism at future high-energy and high-luminosity muon colliders. The impact of up-to-date neutrino oscillation results is taken into account on neutrino parameters and the consequent decay patterns of heavy leptons in a type-III seesaw. The three heavy leptons in the Casas-Ibarra parametrization with diagonal unity matrix are distinguishable in their decay modes. We consider the pair production of charged triplet leptons ${E}^{+}{E}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ through both ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ annihilation and vector boson fusion (VBF) processes. The leading-order framework of electroweak parton distribution functions is utilized to calculate the VBF cross sections. The charged triplet leptons can be probed for masses above $\ensuremath{\sim}1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$. The ${E}^{+}{E}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}ZZ{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ channel can be further utilized to fully reconstruct the three triplet leptons and distinguish neutrino mass patterns. The pair production of heavy neutrinos $N$ and the associated production ${E}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}N$ are only induced by VBF processes and lead to a lepton-number-violating (LNV) signature. We also study the search potential of LNV processes at future high-energy muon colliders with $\sqrt{s}=30\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$.

Searches for baryon and lepton number Violations at BESIII

Based on the data samples of (1310.6 ± 7.0) × 106 J/ψ events at the center-of-mass energy of √ s = 3.097 GeV and 2.93 fb−1 at √ s = 3.773 GeV, BESIII has searched for baryon number violation (BNV) and lepton number violation (LNV) processes in J/ψ, Σ −, and D decays, respectively. No signal events are observed, and the corresponding upper limits on the branching fraction are determined. The Λ-Λ¯ oscillation is also investigated in J/ψ decays, and the upper limits on the oscillation rate and oscillation parameter are extracted.

Searching for heavy neutrino in terms of tau lepton at future hadron collider

The tau lepton plays important role in the correlation between the low-energy neutrino oscillation data and the lepton flavor structure in heavy neutrino decay. We investigate the lepton flavor signatures with tau lepton at hadron collider through lepton number violating (LNV) processes. In the Type I Seesaw with U$(1)_{\rm B-L}$ extension, we study the pair production of heavy neutrinos via a $Z'$ resonance. We present a detailed assessment of the search sensitivity to the channels with tau lepton in the subsequent decay of heavy neutrinos. For the benchmark model with $Z'$ only coupled to the third generation fermions, we find that the future circular collider (FCC-hh) can discover the LNV signal with tau lepton for $M_{Z'}$ up to 2.2 (3) TeV with the gauge coupling $g'=0.6$ and the integrated luminosity of 3 (30) ab$^{-1}$. The test on the flavor combinations of SM charged leptons would reveal the specific nature of different heavy neutrinos.

Effective field theory approach to lepton number violating τ decays * *Supported in part by the Grants No. NSFC-12035008, No. NSFC-11975130, by The National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant No. 2017YFA0402200, by the CAS Center for Excellence in Particle Physics (CCEPP). XDM is supported by the MOST (109-2112-M-002-017-MY3, 109-2811-M-002-535)

We continue our endeavor to investigate lepton number violating (LNV) processes at low energies in the framework of effective field theory (EFT). In this work we study the LNV tau decays , where and denote the lowest-lying charged pseudoscalars . We analyze the dominant contributions in a series of EFTs from high to low energy scales, namely the standard model EFT (SMEFT), the low-energy EFT (LEFT), and the chiral perturbation theory ( ). The decay branching ratios are expressed in terms of the Wilson coefficients of dimension-five and -seven operators in SMEFT and the hadronic low-energy constants. These Wilson coefficients involve the first and second generations of quarks and all generations of leptons; thus, they cannot be explored in low-energy processes such as nuclear neutrinoless double beta decay or LNV kaon decays. Unfortunately, the current experimental upper bounds on the branching ratios are too weak to set useful constraints on these coefficients. Alternatively, if we assume the new physics scale is larger than 1 TeV, the branching ratios are well below the current experimental bounds. We also estimate the hadronic uncertainties incurred in applying to decays by computing one-loop chiral logarithms and attempt to improve the convergence of chiral perturbation by employing dispersion relations in the short-distance part of the decay amplitudes.

Dirac vs. Majorana HNLs (and their oscillations) at SHiP

SHiP is a proposed high-intensity beam dump experiment set to operate at the CERN SPS. It is expected to have an unprecedented sensitivity to a variety of models containing feebly interacting particles, such as Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs). Two HNLs or more could successfully explain the observed neutrino masses through the seesaw mechanism. If, in addition, they are quasi-degenerate, they could be responsible for the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Depending on their mass splitting, HNLs can have very different phenomenologies: they can behave as Majorana fermions — with lepton number violating (LNV) signatures, such as same-sign dilepton decays — or as Dirac fermions with only lepton number conserving (LNC) signatures. In this work, we quantitatively demonstrate that LNV processes can be distinguished from LNC ones at SHiP, using only the angular distribution of the HNL decay products. Accounting for spin correlations in the simulation and using boosted decision trees for discrimination, we show that SHiP will be able to distinguish Majorana-like and Dirac-like HNLs in a significant fraction of the currently unconstrained parameter space. If the mass splitting is of order 10−6 eV, SHiP could even be capable of resolving HNL oscillations, thus providing a direct measurement of the mass splitting. This analysis highlights the potential of SHiP to not only search for feebly interacting particles, but also perform model selection.

Study of the Standard Model and Majorana neutrino contributions to * * National Natural Science Foundation of China (11635009, 11605075) and Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2017JL006)

Lepton number violation processes can be induced by the Majorana neutrino exchange, which provide evidence for the Majorana nature of neutrinos. In addition to the natural explanation of the small neutrino masses, Type-I seesaw mechanism predicts the existence of Majorana neutrinos. The aim of this work is to study the B meson rare decays in the Standard Model and its extensions, and then to investigate the same-sign decay process . The corresponding dilepton invariant mass distributions are calculated. It is found that the dilepton angular distributions could shed light on the properties of new interactions induced by Majorana neutrinos.

Doubly-charged scalar in rare decays of the Bc meson

In this paper, we study the lepton number violation processes of $B_c$ meson induced by possible doubly-charged scalars. Both the three-body decay channels and the four-body decay channels are considered. For the former, $Br\times\left(\frac{s_\Delta h_{ij}}{M_\Delta^2}\right)^{-2}$ is of the order of $10^{-7}\sim 10^{-9}$, and for the later channels, $Br\times\left(\frac{s_\Delta h_{ij}}{M_\Delta^2}\right)^{-2}$ is of the order of $10^{-12}\sim 10^{-20}$, where $s_\Delta$, $h_{ij}$, $M_\Delta$ are the constants related to the doubly-charged boson.

Four-body decays of B meson with lepton number violation

The existence of heavy meson lepton number violating (LNV) processes shows the Majorana nature of the neutrino. Much of this theoretical and experimental researche focuses on this type of decay. Four-body epton-number violation (LNV) processes of the B meson may have sizable branching ratios as they share the same vertex and mixing parameters with the three-body case. Mixing parameters between the heavy Majorana neutrino and charged leptons extracted from the three-body case can be used to constrain the branching ratios of four-body decays of the B meson. So we can update the upper limits of these mixing parameters with new experimental data of the three-body LNV decays. We also analyze using the updated parameters and estimate some channels’ reconstruction events using current experimental data from Belle.

The scalar triplet contribution to lepton flavour violation and neutrinoless double beta decay in Left-Right Symmetric Model

We analyse in detail the scalar triplet contribution to the low-energy lepton flavour violating (LFV) and lepton number violating (LNV) processes within a TeV-scale left-right symmetric framework. We show that in both type-I and type-II seesaw dominance for the light neutrino masses, the triplet of mass comparable to or smaller than the largest right-handed neutrino mass scale can give sizeable contribution to the LFV processes, except in the quasi-degenerate limit of light neutrino masses, where a suppression can occur due to cancellations. In particular, a moderate value of the heaviest neutrino to scalar triplet mass ratio $r\lesssim {\cal O}(1)$ is still experimentally allowed and can be explored in the future LFV experiments. Similarly, the contribution of a relatively light triplet to the LNV process of neutrinoless double beta decay could be significant, disfavouring a part of the model parameter space otherwise allowed by LFV constraints. Nevertheless, we find regions of parameter space consistent with both LFV and LNV searches, for which the values of the total effective neutrino mass can be accessible to the next generation ton-scale experiments. Such light triplets can also be directly searched for at the LHC, thus providing a complementary probe of this scenario. Finally, we also study the implications of the triplet contribution for the left-right symmetric model interpretation of the recent diboson anomaly at the LHC.

Connecting neutrino masses and dark matter by high-dimensional lepton number violation operator

We propose a new model with the Majorana neutrino masses generated at two-loop level, in which the lepton number violation (LNV) processes, such as neutrino-less double beta decays, are mainly induced by the dimension-7 LNV effective operator $$ {\mathcal{O}}_7={\overline{l}}_R^c{\gamma}^{\mu }{L}_L\left({D}_{\mu}\varPhi \right)\varPhi \varPhi $$ . Note that it is necessary to impose an Z2 symmetry in order that $$ {\mathcal{O}}_7 $$ dominates over the conventional dimension-5 Weinberg operator, which naturally results in a stable Z2-odd neutral particle to be the cold dark matter candidate. More interestingly, due to the non-trivial dependence of the charged lepton masses, the model predicts the neutrino mass matrix to be in the form of the normal hierarchy. We also focus on a specific parameter region of great phenomenological interests, such as electroweak precision tests, dark matter direct searches along with its relic abundance, and lepton flavor violation processes.

Falsifying high-scale leptogenesis at the LHC.

Measuring a nonzero value for the cross section of any lepton number violating (LNV) process would put a strong lower limit on the washout factor for the effective lepton number density in the early Universe at times close to the electroweak phase transition and thus would lead to important constraints on any high-scale model for the generation of the observed baryon asymmetry based on LNV. In particular, for leptogenesis (LG) models with masses of the right-handed neutrinos heavier than the mass scale observed at the LHC, the implied large washout factors would lead to a violation of the out-of-equilibrium condition and exponentially suppress the net lepton number produced in such LG models. We thus demonstrate that the observation of LNV processes at the LHC results in the falsification of high-scale LG models. However, no conclusions about the viability of LG models can be drawn from the nonobservation of LNV processes.

Bmeson decays in leptons: powerful probes of new physics

We review some recent measurements of B meson decays that involve leptons in the final states and that are sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model, such as the electroweak penguin decays B → Xsℓ+ℓ−, the Lepton Number Violating process B → Xℓ±ℓ′± and the tree-level dominated decay with τ leptons: B → τντ and B → D(∗)τντ.

MajoranaCP-violating phases in neutrino-antineutrino oscillations and other lepton-number-violating processes

If the massive neutrinos are identified to be the Majorana particles via a convincing measurement of the neutrinoless double beta (0\nu\beta\beta) decay, how to determine the Majorana CP-violating phases in the 3 x 3 lepton flavor mixing matrix U will become a desirable experimental question. The answer to this question is to explore all the possible lepton-number-violating (LNV) processes in which the Majorana phases really matter. In this paper we carry out a systematic study of CP violation in neutrino-antineutrino oscillations, whose CP-conserving parts involve six independent 0\nu\beta\beta-like mass terms <m>_{\alpha\beta} and CP-violating parts are associated with nine independent Jarlskog-like parameters V^{ij}_{\alpha\beta} (for \alpha, \beta = e, \mu, \tau and i, j = 1, 2,3). With the help of current neutrino oscillation data, we analyze the sensitivities of |<m>_{\alpha\beta}| and V^{ij}_{\alpha\beta} to the three CP-violating phases of U, and illustrate the salient features of six independent CP-violating asymmetries between \nu_\alpha \to \bar{\nu}_\beta and \bar{\nu}_\alpha \to \nu_\beta oscillations. As a by-product, the effects of the CP-violating phases on the LNV decays of doubly- and singly-charged Higgs bosons are reexamined by taking account of the unsuppressed value of \theta_{13}. Such CP-conserving LNV processes can be complementary to the possible measurements of neutrino-antineutrino oscillations in the distant future.

Lepton-number violating four-body decays of heavy mesons

Neutrinoless hadron Lepton Number Violating (LNV) decays can be induced by virtual Majorana neutrino, which in turn indubitably show the Majorana nature of neutrinos. Many three-body LNV processes and Lepton Flavour Violating (LFV) processes have been studied extensively in theory and by experiment. As a supplement, we here study 75 four-body LNV (LFV) processes from heavy pseudoscalar $B$ and $D$ decays. Most of these processes have not been studied in theory and searched for in experiment, while they may have sizable decay rates. Since the four-body decay modes have the same vertexes and mixing parameters with three-body cases, so their branching fractions are comparable with the corresponding three-body decays. We calculate their decay widths and branching fractions with current bounds on heavy Majorana neutrino mixing parameters, and estimate some channels' reconstruction events using the current experimental data from Belle.

Lepton-number-violating decays of heavy flavors induced by doubly-charged Higgs boson

We study lepton-number-violating (LNV) decays of heavy flavors ($\ensuremath{\tau}$ lepton and top quark) induced by a doubly-charged Higgs boson in the Higgs triplet model. It is found that the branching fractions of LNV ${\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{+}{M}_{1}^{\ensuremath{-}}{M}_{2}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ decays are highly suppressed compared with the current experimental limits. On the other hand, for LNV top-quark decays, the most optimistic branching ratios for $t\ensuremath{\rightarrow}b{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{+}{W}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ turn out to be at the level of $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}7}\ensuremath{-}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$. The observation of these rare top-quark decays would be a clear signal of LNV processes, and their nonobservation would allow us to constrain the parameters of the Higgs triplet model.

Neutrino Properties Probed by Lepton Number Violating Processes

Study of neutrino properties is nowadays one of the most active domains of research in physics. On the one hand, fundamental properties of the neutrinos like their absolute mass, their character (are they Dirac or Majorana particles?) and the number of neutrino flavors, are still unknown. On the other hand, the knowledge of these properties are of great importance since the neutrinos are very abundant in nature and play a key role in nuclear and particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. In addition, the results of the neutrino oscillation experiments have convincingly showed that neutrinos have mass and mix, in contradiction to the initial assumptions of the Standard Model. In this context there is an increased interest in the study of the Lepton Number Violating (LNV) processes, since they are capable to decide on the above mentioned neutrino properties. Since recently, the neutrinoless double beta (0nββ) decay was considered the only process able to distinguish between Dirac or Majorana neutrinos and to give a hint on the absolute mass of the electron neutrino. At present, the increased luminosity of the LHC experiments at CERN makes it feasable the search for LNV processes at LHC as well. Besides the neutrino character, these studies can also shed light on the existence of other types of neutrinos (the sterile neutrinos), than the three known ones. In this paper, I make a brief review on our present knowledge about the neutrino properties and on the way they can be probed by LNV processes at low- and high-energies. Particularly, I refer to the 0nββ decay process and to the first attempts of searching of LNV processes in hadron collider experiments, particularly in LHC experiments at CERN-Geneva.

Effects of heavy Majorana neutrinos in semileptonic heavy quark decays

The experimental observation of lepton number violating (LNV) processes, where the total lepton number is violated by two units (ΔL = 2), represents the most appropriate way to address the question of the nature of the neutrinos as Majorana or Dirac particles. LNV processes mediated by the exchange of heavy Majorana neutrinos, such as three-body decays of τ leptons and charged pseudoscalar mesons, have been widely studied. In this work we study the contribution of heavy Majorana neutrinos in LNV four-body semileptonic decays of neutral B mesons and top quarks. We focus in a scenario where a single heavy neutrino can enhance the decay rates of these processes via the resonant mechanism. Using current bounds on heavy neutrino mixings, we find that the branching ratios of these processes can be at the level of 10−6 to 10−7. These decay modes seem to be at the reach of the current and forthcoming experiment, and their experimental search can provide complementary constraints on masses and mixings of heavy Majorana neutrinos.