Abstract
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.
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Atkinson, M.C., Coloma, P., Martinez-Soler, I. et al. Heavy neutrino searches through double-bang events at Super-Kamiokande, DUNE, and Hyper-Kamiokande. J. High Energ. Phys. 2022, 174 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2022)174
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2022)174