Heavy Majorana neutrinos in e+e- colliders

Abstract

We investigate possibilities for detecting heavy Majorana neutrinos ($N$'s) in $e^+e^-$ at LEP200 and future Linear Colliders. We concentrate on the processes where the pairs of intermediate heavy $N$'s produce a clear signal of total lepton number violation ($e^+e^- \to NN \to W^+l^-W^+l^{\prime -}$). Such a signal is not possible if the heavy neutrinos are of Dirac nature. Our approach is general in the sense that the intermediate $N$'s can be either on shell or off shell. Discussion of the relative numerical importance of the $s$ and the $t+u$ channels of the $NN$ production is also included.