Direct bounds on electroweak scale pseudo-Dirac neutrinos from s=8TeV LHC data

Abstract

Seesaw models with a small lepton number breaking can naturally accommodate electroweak-scale pseudo-Dirac neutrinos with a sizable mixing with the active neutrinos, while satisfying the light neutrino oscillation data. Due to the smallness of the lepton number breaking parameter, the 'smoking gun' collider signature of same-sign dileptons is suppressed, and the heavy neutrinos in these models would manifest at the LHC dominantly through lepton number conserving trilepton final states. Using the recent CMS results for anomalous production of multilepton events at the s=8TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of 19.5fb -1, we derive direct upper bounds on the light-heavy neutrino mixing parameter as a function of the heavy Dirac neutrino mass. These limits extend the collider sensitivity to higher heavy neutrino masses up to about 500 GeV. In the lower mass range, our limits are comparable to the existing indirect constraints derived from Higgs and electroweak precision data. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.