Enhancing the sensitivity to seesaw mechanism predictions in gauged B − L scenarios

Capozzi, Francesco; Dutta, Bhaskar; Gurung, Gajendra; Jang, Wooyoung; Shoemaker, Ian M.; Thompson, Adrian; Yu, Jaehoon

doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.111.055036

Title: Enhancing the sensitivity to seesaw mechanism predictions in gauged $B - L$ scenarios

Journal Article · 30 March 2025 · Physical Review. D.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.055036 · OSTI ID:2543183

; Dutta, Bhaskar;

;

New gauge bosons coupled to heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) are simple and well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model. In searches for HNLs in proton fixed-target experiments, we find that a large population of gauge bosons ( $Z^{'}$ ) produced by proton bremsstrahlung may decay to HNLs, leading to a significant improvement in existing bounds on the ( $m_{HNL}, U_{α}$ ), where $U_{α}$ represent the mixing between HNL and the active neutrinos with flavor $α$ . We study this possibility in fixed target experiments with the 8 GeV proton beams, including SBND, MicroBooNE, and ICARUS, as well as DUNE and DarkQuest at 120 GeV. We find the projected sensitivities to additional $Z^{'}$ -mediated HNL production can bring the seesaw mechanism of the neutrino masses within a broadened experimental reach. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

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Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0010143; SC0010813; SC0011686; SC0020250; SC0020262

OSTI ID:: 2543183

Journal Information:: Physical Review. D., Journal Name: Physical Review. D. Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 111; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 2470-0010

Publisher:: American Physical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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