Dib Venturelli, Claudio Omar

We study the possibility to observe sterile neutrinos with masses in the range between 5 GeV and 20 GeV at the LHC, using the exclusive semileptonic modes involving pions, namely W to lepton + N to n pions + lepton+lepton (n = 1, 2, 3). The two pion and three pion modes require extrapolations of form factors to large time-like q2, which we do using vector dominance models as well as light front holographic QCD, with remarkable agreement. This mass region is difficult to explore with inclusive dilepton+dijet modes or trilepton modes and impossible to explore in rare meson decays. While particle identification is a real challenge in these modes, vertex displacement due to the long living neutrino in the above mass range can greatly help reduce backgrounds. Assuming a sample of 109 W bosons at the end of the LHC Run 2, these modes could discover a sterile neutrino in the above mass range or improve the current bounds on the heavy-to-light lepton mixings by an order of magnitude, U2lN∼2×10−6. Moreover, by studying the equal sign and opposite sign dileptons, the Majorana or Dirac character of the sterile neutrino may be revealed.

Abstract We consider light neutralinos of mass about 1 GeV, produced from τ lepton rare decays at Belle II, in the context of R-parity-violating (RPV) supersymmetry. With large and clean samples of τ leptons produced at the Belle II experiment, excellent sensitivity to such light neutralinos with the exotic signatures of displaced vertices is expected. We focus on two benchmark scenarios of single RPV operators, $$ {\lambda}_{311}^{\prime }{L}_3{Q}_1{\overline{D}}_1 $$ λ 311 ′ L 3 Q 1 D ¯ 1 and $$ {\lambda}_{312}^{\prime }{L}_3{Q}_1{\overline{D}}_2 $$ λ 312 ′ L 3 Q 1 D ¯ 2 , which induce both the production and decay of the lightest neutralino. For the reconstruction of a displaced vertex, we require at least two charged pions in the final states. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations for both signal and background events, and find that Belle II can explore regions in the parameter space competitive with other probes. In particular, for the $$ {\lambda}_{311}^{\prime } $$ λ 311 ′ scenario, it can put limits up to two orders of magnitude stronger than the current bounds.

Abstract We propose a search for B meson decays to a baryon plus missing energy at the Belle II experiment to probe supersymmetry with a GeV-scale lightest neutralino $$ {\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0 $$ χ ~ 1 0 and R-parity violation (RPV). We perform analytic computations of the signal branching fractions in the framework of effective field theory, with a single nonzero RPV operator $$ {\lambda}_{ij3}^{\prime \prime }{\overline{U}}_i^c{\overline{D}}_j^c{\overline{D}}_3^c $$ λ ij 3 ′ ′ U ¯ i c D ¯ j c D ¯ 3 c , where i, j = 1, 2. The hadronic form factors are calculated using an SU(3) phenomenological Lagrangian approach for the proton, as well as several hyperons and charmed baryons. Since the decay of the neutralino is kinematically and CKM suppressed in this theoretical scenario, it decays outside the detector and appears experimentally only as missing energy. We detail the analysis techniques at the experimental level and estimate the background in the $$ {B}^{+}\to p{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0 $$ B + → p χ ~ 1 0 search using published results for $$ {B}^{+}\to {K}^{+}\nu \overline{\nu} $$ B + → K + ν ν ¯ . Our final sensitivity plots are shown for both $$ {\lambda}_{113}^{\prime \prime } $$ λ 113 ′ ′ versus the squark mass $$ {m}_{\tilde{q}} $$ m q ~ and $$ {\lambda}_{113}^{\prime \prime }/{m}_{\tilde{q}}^2 $$ λ 113 ′ ′ / m q ~ 2 versus the neutralino mass $$ {m}_{{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0} $$ m χ ~ 1 0 . We find that the search at Belle II could probe $$ {\lambda}_{113}^{\prime \prime }/{m}_{\tilde{q}}^2 $$ λ 113 ′ ′ / m q ~ 2 down to the order of 10−8 GeV−2 in the kinematically allowed $$ {m}_{{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0} $$ m χ ~ 1 0 range. We also obtain current limits on $$ {\lambda}_{123}^{\prime \prime } $$ λ 123 ′ ′ by recasting an existing search interpreted as $$ {B}^0\to {\Lambda}^0{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0 $$ B 0 → Λ 0 χ ~ 1 0 , and comment about searches for $$ {B}^{+}\to {\Sigma}^{+}{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0 $$ B + → Σ + χ ~ 1 0 , $$ {B}^0\to {\Sigma}^0{\chi}_1^0 $$ B 0 → Σ 0 χ 1 0 , $$ {B}^{+}\to {\Lambda}_c^{+}{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0 $$ B + → Λ c + χ ~ 1 0 , and $$ {B}^{+}\to {\Xi}_c^{+}{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0 $$ B + → Ξ c + χ ~ 1 0 . In closing, we briefly discuss potential searches at the LHCb and BESIII experiments.