Discriminating among the theoretical origins of new heavy Majorana neutrinos at the CERN LHC

Abstract

A study on the possibility of distinguishing new heavy Majorana neutrino models at LHC energies is presented. The experimental confirmation of standard neutrinos with non-zero mass and the theoretical possibility of lepton number violation find a natural explanation when new heavy Majorana neutrinos exist. These new neutrinos appear in models with new right-handed singlets, in new doublets of some grand unified theories and left-right symmetrical models. It is expected that signals of new particles can be found at the CERN high-energy hadron collider (LHC). We present signatures and distributions that can indicate the theoretical origin of these new particles. The single and pair production of heavy Majorana neutrinos are calculated and the model dependence is discussed. Same-sign dileptons in the final state provide a clear signal for the Majorana nature of heavy neutrinos, since there is lepton number violation. Mass bounds on heavy Majorana neutrinos allowing model discrimination are estimated for three different LHC luminosities.