Inflationary Gravitational Waves and Laboratory Searches as Complementary Probes of Right-handed Neutrinos

2025/04/21 by Zafri A. Borboruah, Frank F. Deppisch, Borboruah, Zafri A. +5 · 9 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.15374

Abstract

We analyze the damping of inflationary gravitational waves (GW) that re-enter the Hubble horizon before or during a post-inflationary era dominated by a meta-stable, right-handed neutrino (RHN), whose out-of-equilibrium decay releases entropy. Within a minimal type-I seesaw extension of the Standard Model (SM), we explore the conditions under which the population of thermally produced RHNs remain long-lived and cause a period of matter-domination. We find that the suppression of the GW spectrum occurs above a characteristic frequency determined by the RHN mass and active-sterile mixing. For RHN masses in the range 0.1-10 GeV and mixing 10^-12 \lesssim |V_eN|² \lesssim 10^-5, we estimate such characteristic frequencies and the signal-to-noise ratio to assess the detection prospects in GW observatories such as THEIA, μ-ARES, LISA, BBO and ET. Additionally we use LIGO data to put upper bounds on the reheating temperature after inflation, for a given blue-tilted GW spectrum. We find complementarity between GW signals and laboratory searches in SHiP, DUNE and LEGEND-1000. Notably, RHN masses of 0.2-2 GeV and mixing 10^-10 \lesssim |V_eN|² \lesssim 10^-7 are testable in both laboratory experiments and GW observations. Additionally, GW experiments can probe the canonical seesaw regime of light neutrino mass generation, a region largely inaccessible to laboratory searches.

Citations

• Complementarity between Cosmic String Gravitational Waves and long-lived particle searches in a laboratory
• BBN Constraint on Heavy Neutrino Production and Decay
• Direct neutrino-mass measurement based on 259 days of KATRIN data
• The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE): Mission Design and Science Goals
• Simulating Heavy Neutral Leptons with General Couplings at Collider and Fixed Target Experiments
• Inflationary Gravitational Wave Spectral Shapes as test for Low-Scale Leptogenesis
• Limits on Non-Relativistic Matter During Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Long Lived Particle Decays in MATHUSLA
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-wave Background
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array
• Probing Freeze-in Dark Matter via Heavy Neutrino Portal
• Probes of Heavy Sterile Neutrinos
• Snowmass 2021 CMB-S4 White Paper
• Snowmass2021 CMB-HD White Paper
• BICEP / Keck XIII: Improved Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves using Planck, WMAP, and BICEP/Keck Observations through the 2018 Observing Season
• Planck 2018 results
• Exploring the Early Universe with Gaia and THEIA
• Two-Neutrino Double Beta Decay with Sterile Neutrinos
• Blue-tilted inflationary tensor spectrum and reheating in the light of NANOGrav results
• Analysis of Light Neutrino Exchange and Short-Range Mechanisms in 0νββ Decay
• Final Results of GERDA on the Search for Neutrinoless Double-β Decay
• Uniting low-scale leptogeneses
• Primordial Gravitational Wave Signals in Modified Cosmologies
• The fate of hints: updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations
• Gravitational Waves from Fundamental Axion Dynamics
• An Extended Analysis of Heavy Neutral Leptons during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Sterile neutrinos and neutrinoless double beta decay in effective field theory
• Searches for Decays of New Particles in the DUNE Multi-Purpose Near Detector
• Neutrinoless double beta decay versus other probes of heavy sterile neutrinos
• A Space Mission to Map the Entire Observable Universe using the CMB as a Backlight
• Unveiling the gravitational universe at μ-Hz frequencies
• The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna: Unveiling the Millihertz Gravitational Wave Sky
• CMB-HD: An Ultra-Deep, High-Resolution Millimeter-Wave Survey Over Half the Sky
• Effects of the QCD Equation of State and Lepton Asymmetry on Primordial Gravitational Waves
• Dark, Cold, and Noisy: Constraining Secluded Hidden Sectors with Gravitational Waves
• Fundamental Physics with the Square Kilometre Array
• Planck 2018 results: VI. Cosmological parameters
• Planck 2018 results. X. Constraints on inflation
• Long-Lived Particles at the Energy Frontier: The MATHUSLA Physics Case
• Short-Range Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Mechanisms
• The interpolating formula for the 0νββ-decay half-life in the case of light and heavy neutrino mass mechanisms
• Primordial gravitational waves, precisely: The role of thermodynamics in the Standard Model
• Cosmological backgrounds of gravitational waves
• Neutrinoless double beta decay in chiral effective field theory: lepton number violation at dimension seven
• Search for Majorana Neutrinos near the Inverted Mass Hierarchy Region with KamLAND-Zen
• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• European Pulsar Timing Array Limits on Continuous Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• A facility to Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) at the CERN SPS
• European Pulsar Timing Array Limits On An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Gravitational wave astronomy with the SKA
• Prospects of determination of reheating temperature after inflation by DECIGO
• Blue-tilted Tensor Spectrum and Thermal History of the Universe
• Studying Inflation with Future Space-Based Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Blue Tensor Spectrum from Particle Production during Inflation
• Strong Planck constraints on braneworld and non-commutative inflation
• Inflationary Gravitational Waves and the Evolution of the Early Universe
• Complex Spinors and Unified Theories
• The Gravitational Wave Spectrum from Cosmological B-L Breaking
• Early Universe Tomography with CMB and Gravitational Waves
• Prospects for determination of thermal history after inflation with future gravitational wave detectors
• Particle production during inflation and gravitational waves detectable by ground-based interferometers
• Detector configuration of DECIGO/BBO and identification of cosmological neutron-star binaries
• Sensitivity Studies for Third-Generation Gravitational Wave Observatories
• G-inflation: inflation driven by the Galileon field
• keV sterile neutrino dark matter in gauge extensions of the standard model
• Gravitational Wave Background and Non-Gaussianity as a Probe of the Curvaton Scenario
• The search for heavy Majorana neutrinos
• The role of sterile neutrinos in cosmology and astrophysics
• Precision calculations of the gravitational wave background spectrum from inflation
• Probing reheating temperature of the universe with gravitational wave background
• Relating gravitational wave constraints from primordial nucleosynthesis, pulsar timing, laser interferometers, and the CMB: implications for the early universe
• Tensor Modes from a Primordial Hagedorn Phase of String Cosmology
• Detecting the cosmic gravitational wave background with the Big Bang Observer
• Probing the early universe with inflationary gravitational waves
• Beyond LISA: Exploring Future Gravitational Wave Missions
• Inflation with violation of the null energy condition
• Science with the Square Kilometer Array: Motivation, Key Science Projects, Standards and Assumptions
• Observational constraints on patch inflation in noncommutative spacetime
• Probing the equation of state of the early universe with a space laser interferometer
• Direct Evidence for Neutrino Flavor Transformation from Neutral-Current Interactions in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
• Massive sterile neutrinos as warm Dark Matter
• Gravitational wave experiments and early universe cosmology
• Production of Massive Fermions at Preheating and Leptogenesis
• Evidence for oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos
• The Cold Dark Matter Density Perturbation
• Sterile neutrinos as dark matter
• Neutrino masses in SU(2) ⊗ U(1) theories
• Horizontal Symmetry and Masses of Neutrinos

Cited by

• Gravitational Wave Spectral Shapes as a probe of Long Lived Right-handed Neutrinos, Leptogenesis and Dark Matter: Gobal versus Local B-L Cosmic Strings
• Neutrino Oscillation Prospects with a Dual-Baseline Beam from BNL to SNOLAB and SURF
• Seesaw Cosmology
• A comparative study of physics capabilities of a liquid argon and a water based liquid scintillator at DUNE
• Leptogenesis with sub-electroweak-scale reheating temperature
• Primordial Gravitational Waves as Complementary Probe of Dark Matter Indirect Detection
• Observing Leptogenesis in Action with Gravitational Waves
• Axion Dark Matter Archaeology with Primordial Gravitational Waves

Related

• Inflationary Gravitational Wave Spectral Shapes as test for Low-Scale Leptogenesis
• Gravitational Wave Spectral Shapes as a probe of Long Lived Right-handed Neutrinos, Leptogenesis and Dark Matter: Gobal versus Local B-L Cosmic Strings
• Gravitational waves from supermassive right-handed neutrinos produced at preheating
• Gravitational Wave Signatures of Warm Dark Matter in Gauge Extensions of the Standard Model
• Probing Right Handed Neutrino assisted Reheating with Gravitational Waves and Leptogenesis