Dib, C., Helo, J. C., Hirsch, M., Kovalenko, S., & Schmidt, I. (2012). Heavy sterile neutrinos in tau decays and the MiniBooNE anomaly. Phys. Rev. D, 85(1), 011301–4pp.
Abstract: Current results of the MiniBooNE experiment show excess events that indicate neutrino oscillations, but only if one goes beyond the standard 3 family scenario. Recently a different explanation of the events has been given, not in terms of oscillations but by the production and decay of a massive sterile neutrino with large transition magnetic moment. We study the effect of such a sterile neutrino in the rare decays tau(-) -> mu(-)mu(+)pi(-)nu and tau(-) -> mu(-)mu(+)e(-)nu nu. We find that searches for these decays, featuring displaced vertices between the mu(-) and the other charged particles, constitute reliable tests for the existence of the sterile neutrino proposed to explain the MiniBooNE anomaly. These searches could be done with already existing experimental data.
|
Helo, J. C., Kovalenko, S. G., Hirsch, M., & Pas, H. (2013). Neutrinoless double beta decay and lepton number violation at the LHC. Phys. Rev. D, 88(1), 011901–5pp.
Abstract: We compare the discovery potential of the LHC for lepton number violating (LNV) signals with the sensitivity of current and future double beta decay experiments, assuming 0 nu beta beta decay is dominated by heavy particle exchange. We consider charged scalar, leptoquark and diquark mechanisms of 0 nu beta beta decay, covering the 0 nu beta beta decay operators with both, the smallest and largest, possible rates. We demonstrate, if 0 nu beta beta decay were found with a half-life below 10(26)-10(27) years a positive signal should show up at the LHC, except for some particular cases of the leptoquark mechanism, and vice versa, if the LHC does not find any hints for LNV, a “short-range” explanation for a finite 0 nu beta beta decay half-life will be ruled out in most cases. We argue, if a positive LNV signal were found at the LHC, it is possible to identify the dominant contribution to 0 nu beta beta. Two different kinds of observables which could provide such “model discriminating” power are discussed: different invariant mass peaks and the charge asymmetry.
|
Esteves, J. N., Romao, J. C., Hirsch, M., Staub, F., & Porod, W. (2011). Supersymmetric type-III seesaw mechanism: Lepton flavor violating decays and dark matter. Phys. Rev. D, 83(1), 013003–21pp.
Abstract: We study a supersymmetric version of the seesaw mechanism type III. The model consists of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model particle content plus three copies of 24 superfields. The fermionic part of the SU(2) triplet contained in the 24 is responsible for the type-III seesaw, which is used to explain the observed neutrino masses and mixings. Complete copies of 24 are introduced to maintain gauge coupling unification. These additional states change the beta functions of the gauge couplings above the seesaw scale. Using minimal Supergravity boundary conditions, we calculate the resulting supersymmetric mass spectra at the electroweak scale using full 2-loop renormalization group equations. We show that the resulting spectrum can be quite different compared to the usual minimal Supergravity spectrum. We discuss how this might be used to obtain information on the seesaw scale from mass measurements. Constraints on the model space due to limits on lepton flavour violating decays are discussed. The main constraints come from the bounds on μ-> e gamma but there are also regions where the decay tau -> μgamma gives stronger constraints. We also calculate the regions allowed by the dark matter constraint. For the sake of completeness, we compare our results with those for the supersymmetric seesaw type II and, to some extent, with type I.
|
Hirsch, M., Porod, W., Weiss, C., & Staub, F. (2013). Supersymmetric type-III seesaw mechanism: Lepton flavor violation and LHC phenomenology. Phys. Rev. D, 87(1), 013010–12pp.
Abstract: We study a supersymmetric version of the type-III seesaw mechanism considering two variants of the model: a minimal version for explaining neutrino data with only two copies of 24 superfields and a model with three generations of 24-plets. The latter predicts, in general, rates for μ-> e gamma inconsistent with experimental data. However, this bound can be evaded if certain special conditions within the neutrino sector are fulfilled. In the case of two 24-plets, lepton flavor violation constraints can be satisfied much more easily. After specifying the corresponding regions in the minimal supergravity parameter space, we show that under favorable conditions one can test the corresponding flavor structures in the leptonic sector at the LHC. For this we perform Monte Carlo studies for the signals, also taking into account the supersymmetry background. We find that it is only of minor importance for the scenarios studied here.
|
Gonzalez, M., Kovalenko, S. G., & Hirsch, M. (2016). QCD running in neutrinoless double beta decay: Short-range mechanisms. Phys. Rev. D, 93(1), 013017–11pp.
Abstract: The decay rate of neutrinoless double beta (0 nu beta beta) decay contains terms from heavy particle exchange, which lead to dimension-9 (d = 9) six fermion operators at low energies. Limits on the coefficients of these operators have been derived previously neglecting the running of the operators between the high scale, where they are generated, and the energy scale of 0 nu beta beta decay, where they are measured. Here we calculate the leading-order QCD corrections to all possible d = 9 operators contributing to the 0 nu beta beta amplitude and use renormalization group running to calculate 1-loop improved limits. Numerically, QCD running dramatically changes some limits by factors of the order of or larger than typical uncertainties in nuclear matrix element calculations. For some specific cases, operator mixing in the running changes limits even by up to 3 orders of magnitude. Our results can be straightforwardly combined with new experimental limits or improved nuclear matrix element calculations to rederive updated limits on all short-range contributions to 0 nu beta beta decay.
|
