Tree-level unitarity constraints on heavy neutral leptons

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Urquía-Calderón, Kevin A., Timiryasov, Inar, Ruchayskiy, Oleg
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Urquía-Calderón, Kevin A.
Timiryasov, Inar
Ruchayskiy, Oleg
author_facet Urquía-Calderón, Kevin A.
Timiryasov, Inar
Ruchayskiy, Oleg
contents Heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) can explain the origin of neutrino masses and oscillations over a wide range of masses. Direct experimental probes of HNLs become unfeasible for masses significantly above the electroweak scale.Consequently, the strongest limits arise from the non-observation of charged lepton flavor-violating processes induced by HNLs at loop level.Counter-intuitively, these bounds tighten as the HNL mass increases, an effect that persists within the perturbative regime. This work explores the precise form of these bounds for HNLs with masses well beyond the electroweak scale by analyzing the full matrix of partial waves (tree-level unitarity). At high energies, the HNL model simplifies to a Yukawa theory, allowing unitarity constraints to be expressed in terms of the total Yukawa coupling $\left|Y_{\mathrm{tot}}\right|^2$ involving HNLs, lepton doublets, and the Higgs boson. Processes with $J=0$ and $J=1/2$ yield the well-known result $\left|Y_{\mathrm{tot}}\right|^2 \leq 8π$. However, the most stringent result arises from processes with $J = 1$, which is given by $\left|Y_{\mathrm{tot}}\right|^2 \leq 4π(\sqrt{5} -1) = 8π/φ\approx 15.533$, where $φ$ is the Golden ratio. These results remain valid provided that the Yukawa matrix has rank 1, a condition approximately satisfied in models with two or three HNLs, with large mixing angles, and radiactively small neutrino masses. Finally, we determine the maximum mass that an HNL can have in the type-I seesaw model while remaining the sole source of neutrino masses.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_13412
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tree-level unitarity constraints on heavy neutral leptons
Urquía-Calderón, Kevin A.
Timiryasov, Inar
Ruchayskiy, Oleg
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) can explain the origin of neutrino masses and oscillations over a wide range of masses. Direct experimental probes of HNLs become unfeasible for masses significantly above the electroweak scale.Consequently, the strongest limits arise from the non-observation of charged lepton flavor-violating processes induced by HNLs at loop level.Counter-intuitively, these bounds tighten as the HNL mass increases, an effect that persists within the perturbative regime. This work explores the precise form of these bounds for HNLs with masses well beyond the electroweak scale by analyzing the full matrix of partial waves (tree-level unitarity). At high energies, the HNL model simplifies to a Yukawa theory, allowing unitarity constraints to be expressed in terms of the total Yukawa coupling $\left|Y_{\mathrm{tot}}\right|^2$ involving HNLs, lepton doublets, and the Higgs boson. Processes with $J=0$ and $J=1/2$ yield the well-known result $\left|Y_{\mathrm{tot}}\right|^2 \leq 8π$. However, the most stringent result arises from processes with $J = 1$, which is given by $\left|Y_{\mathrm{tot}}\right|^2 \leq 4π(\sqrt{5} -1) = 8π/φ\approx 15.533$, where $φ$ is the Golden ratio. These results remain valid provided that the Yukawa matrix has rank 1, a condition approximately satisfied in models with two or three HNLs, with large mixing angles, and radiactively small neutrino masses. Finally, we determine the maximum mass that an HNL can have in the type-I seesaw model while remaining the sole source of neutrino masses.
title Tree-level unitarity constraints on heavy neutral leptons
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.13412