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Anamiati, G., Hirsch, M., & Nardi, E. (2016). Quasi-Dirac neutrinos at the LHC. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 010–19pp.
Abstract: Lepton number violation is searched for at the LHC using same-sign leptons plus jets. The standard lore is that the ratio of same-sign lepton to opposite-sign lepton events, R-ll, is equal to R-ll = 1 (R-ll = 0) for Majorana (Dirac) neutrinos. We clarify under which conditions the ratio Rll can assume values different from 0 and 1, and we argue that the precise value 0 < R-ll < 1 is controlled by the mass splitting versus the width of the quasi-Dirac resonances. A measurement of R-ll not equal 0, 1 would then contain valuable information about the origin of neutrino masses. We consider as an example the inverse seesaw mechanism in a left-right symmetric scenario, which is phenomenologically particularly interesting since all the heavy states in the high energy completion of the model could be within experimental reach. A prediction of this scenario is a correlation between the values of R-ll and the ratio between the rates for heavy neutrino decays into standard model gauge bosons, and into three body final states ljj mediated by off-shell W-R exchange.
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Anamiati, G., De Romeri, V., Hirsch, M., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2019). Quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations at DUNE and JUNO. Phys. Rev. D, 100(3), 035032–12pp.
Abstract: Quasi-Dirac neutrinos are obtained when the Lagrangian density of a neutrino mass model contains both Dirac and Majorana mass terms, and the Majorana terms are sufficiently small. This type of neutrino introduces new mixing angles and mass splittings into the Hamiltonian, which will modify the standard neutrino oscillation probabilities. In this paper, we focus on the case where the new mass splittings are too small to be measured, but new angles and phases are present. We perform a sensitivity study for this scenario for the upcoming experiments DUNE and JUNO, finding that they will improve current bounds on the relevant parameters. Finally, we also explore the discovery potential of both experiments, assuming that neutrinos are indeed quasi-Dirac particles.
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Anamiati, G., Fonseca, R. M., & Hirsch, M. (2018). Quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations. Phys. Rev. D, 97(9), 095008–16pp.
Abstract: Dirac neutrino masses require two distinct neutral Weyl spinors per generation, with a special arrangement of masses and interactions with charged leptons. Once this arrangement is perturbed, lepton number is no longer conserved and neutrinos become Majorana particles. If these lepton number violating perturbations are small compared to the Dirac mass terms, neutrinos are quasi-Dirac particles. Alternatively, this scenario can be characterized by the existence of pairs of neutrinos with almost degenerate masses, and a lepton mixing matrix which has 12 angles and 12 phases. In this work we discuss the phenomenology of quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations and derive limits on the relevant parameter space from various experiments. In one parameter perturbations of the Dirac limit, very stringent bounds can be derived on the mass splittings between the almost degenerate pairs of neutrinos. However, we also demonstrate that with suitable changes to the lepton mixing matrix, limits on such mass splittings are much weaker, or even completely absent. Finally, we consider the possibility that the mass splittings are too small to be measured and discuss bounds on the new, nonstandard lepton mixing angles from current experiments for this case.
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Arbelaez, C., Gonzalez, M., Kovalenko, S. G., & Hirsch, M. (2017). QCD-improved limits from neutrinoless double beta decay. Phys. Rev. D, 96(1), 015010–12pp.
Abstract: We analyze the impact of QCD corrections on limits derived from neutrinoless double beta decay (0 nu beta beta ). As demonstrated previously, the effect of the color mismatch arising from loops with gluons linking the quarks from different color-singlet currents participating in the effective operators has a dramatic impact on the predictions for some particular Wilson coefficients. Here, we consider all possible contributions from heavy particle exchange, i.e. the so-called short-range mechanism of 0 nu beta beta decay. All high-scale models (HSM) in this class match at some scale around a similar to few TeV with the corresponding effective theory, containing a certain set of effective dimension-9 operators. Many of these HSM receive contributions from more than one of the basic operators and we calculate limits on these models using the latest experimental data. We also show with one nontrivial example, how to derive limits on more complicated models, in which many different Feynman diagrams contribute to 0 nu beta beta decay, using our general method.
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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.
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