2007/04/30 by Michael L. Graesser · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Context (archaeology) #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Electroweak scale #Gauge (firearms) #Gauge boson #Gauge theory #Higgs boson #Lepton #Lepton number #Neutrino #Neutrino oscillation #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Physics beyond the Standard Model #Quark #Right handed #Standard Model (mathematical formulation) #Sterile neutrino #Technicolor #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.76.075006
published as Phys.Rev.D76:075006,2007 · 17+1 pages. Corrected a small error and updated references
arxiv created 2007/05/22 · openalex publication_date 2007/10/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
The existence of certain TeV suppressed higher-dimension operators may open up new decay channels for the Higgs boson to decay into lighter right-handed neutrinos. These channels may dominate over all other channels if the Higgs boson is light. For a Higgs boson mass larger than 2mW, the new decays are subdominant yet still of interest. The right-handed neutrinos have macroscopic decay lengths and decay mostly into final states containing leptons and quarks. A distinguishing collider signature of this scenario is a pair of displaced vertices violating lepton number. A general operator analysis is performed using the minimal flavor violation hypothesis to illustrate that these novel decay processes can occur while remaining consistent with experimental constraints on lepton number violating processes. In this context, the question of whether these new decay modes dominate is found to depend crucially on the approximate flavor symmetries of the right-handed neutrinos.