Doubly-charged scalars in the type II seesaw mechanism: Fundamental symmetry tests and high-energy searches

Abstract

We analyze the sensitivity of low-energy fundamental symmetry tests to interactions mediated by doubly-charged scalars that arise in type II seesaw models of neutrino mass and their left-right symmetric extensions. We focus on the next generation measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry in Møller scattering planned by the MOLLER collaboration at Jefferson Laboratory. We compare the MOLLER sensitivity to that of searches for charged lepton flavor violation (CLFV) and neutrinoless double beta-decay (0νββ-decay) as well as present and possible future high-energy collider probes. We show that for the simplest type-II seesaw scenario, CLFV searches have the greatest sensitivity. However, in a left-right symmetric extension where the scale of parity-breaking is decoupled from the SU(2)R-breaking scale, the MOLLER experiment will provide a unique probe of scalar triplet interactions in the right-handed sector for a doubly-charged scalar mass up to ∼10 TeV and help elucidate the mechanism of 0νββ-decay.