Heavy neutrino searches through double-bang events at Super-Kamiokande, DUNE, and Hyper-Kamiokande

A variety of new physics scenarios allows for neutrinos to up-scatter into a heavy neutral lepton state. For a range of couplings and neutrino energies, the heavy neutrino may travel some distance before decaying to visible final states. When both the up-scattering and decay occur within the detecto...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Atkinson, M.C (Author), Coloma, P. (Author), Martinez-Soler, I. (Author), Rocco, N. (Author), Shoemaker, I.M (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH 2022
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Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
Description
Summary:A variety of new physics scenarios allows for neutrinos to up-scatter into a heavy neutral lepton state. For a range of couplings and neutrino energies, the heavy neutrino may travel some distance before decaying to visible final states. When both the up-scattering and decay occur within the detector volume, these “double bang” events produce distinctive phenomenology with very low background. In this work, we first consider the current sensitivity at Super-Kamiokande via the atmospheric neutrino flux, and find current data may already provide new constraints. We then examine projected future sensitivity at DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande, including both atmospheric and beam flux contributions to double-bang signals. © 2022, The Author(s).
ISBN:10298479 (ISSN)
DOI:10.1007/JHEP04(2022)174