Reconstructing a Heavy Neutral Lepton at the LHC

Abstract

Heavy lepton singlets $N$ slightly mixed with a standard neutrino $\nu_\ell$ are usually searched for at the LHC in the trilepton plus $p_{\rm T}^{\rm miss}$ channel: $pp \to W^+ \to \ell^+ N$ with $N\to \ell^- W^+ \to \ell^- \ell'^+ \nu$. We show that, although the longitudinal momentum of the final $\nu$ escapes detection, the mass of the heavy lepton can be reconstructed. While this possibility has not been considered in recent LHC searches, we find that the search for a mass peak could systematically improve the current collider bounds on the mixing $|V_{\ell N}|^2$ for any mass $m_N\ge M_W$.