Dib Venturelli, Claudio Omar

The phenomenon of neutrino flavor oscillations motivates searches for sterile neutrinos in a broad range of masses and mixing-parameter values. A sterile neutrino 𝑁 that mixes predominantly with the 𝜏 neutrino is particularly challenging experimentally. To address this challenge, we propose a new method to search for a 𝜈𝜏-mixing 𝑁 that is lighter than the 𝜏 lepton. The method uses the large 𝑒+⁢𝑒−→𝜏+⁢𝜏− samples collected at 𝐵-factory experiments to produce the 𝑁 in 𝜏-lepton decays. We exploit the long lifetime of a sterile neutrino in this mass range to suppress background and apply kinematic and vertexing constraints that enable measuring the sterile-neutrino mass. Estimates for the sensitivities of the BABAR, Belle, and Belle II experiments are calculated and presented.

Knowledge of the mechanism of neutrino mass generation would help understand a lot more about Lepton Number Violation (LNV), the cosmological evolution of the Universe, or the evolution of astronomical objects. Here we propose a verifiable and viable extension of the Standard model for neutrino mass generation, with a low-scale seesaw mechanism via LNV condensation in the sector of sterile neutrinos. To prove the concept, we analyze a simplified model of just a single family of elementary particles and check it against a set of phenomenological constraints coming from electroweak symmetry breaking, neutrino masses, leptogenesis and dark matter. The model predicts (i) TeV scale quasi-degenerate heavy sterile neutrinos, suitable for leptogenesis with resonant enhancement of the CP asymmetry, (ii) a set of additional heavy Higgs bosons whose existence can be challenged at the LHC, (iii) an additional light and sterile Higgs scalar which is a candidate for decaying warm dark matter, and (iv) a majoron. Since the model is based on simple and robust principles of dynamical mass generation, its parameters are very restricted, but remarkably it is still within current phenomenological limits.