Probing the nature of Heavy Neutral Leptons in direct searches and neutrinoless double beta decay

Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) are a popular extension of the Standard Model to explain the lightness of neutrino masses and the matter-antimatter asymmetry through leptogenesis. Future direct searches, such as fixed target setups like DUNE, and neutrinoless double beta decay are both expected to prob...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Patrick D. Bolton, Frank F. Deppisch, Mudit Rai, Zhong Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-01-01
Series:Nuclear Physics B
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0550321324003511
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) are a popular extension of the Standard Model to explain the lightness of neutrino masses and the matter-antimatter asymmetry through leptogenesis. Future direct searches, such as fixed target setups like DUNE, and neutrinoless double beta decay are both expected to probe the regime of active-sterile neutrino mixing in a standard Seesaw scenario of neutrino mass generation for HNL masses around mN≲1 GeV. Motivated by this, we analyse the complementarity between future direct searches and neutrinoless double beta decay to probe the nature of HNLs, i.e., whether they are Majorana or quasi-Dirac states, and CP-violating phases in the sterile neutrino sector. Following an analytic discussion of the complementarity, we implement a generic fixed target experiment modelling DUNE. We perform a statistical study in how a combined search for HNLs in direct searches and neutrinoless double beta decay, using DUNE and LEGEND-1000 as representative examples, can probe the nature of sterile neutrinos.
ISSN:0550-3213