GeV seesaw, accidentally small neutrino masses, and Higgs decays to neutrinos

Jun, 2007
10 pages
e-Print:
Report number:
  • NUHEP-TH-07-06

Citations per year

20062011201620212024024681012
Abstract: (arXiv)
If the Standard Model particle content is extended by gauge singlet fermions (right-handed neutrinos), active neutrinos generically acquire (Majorana) masses, in agreement with our current understanding of the lepton sector. If the right-handed neutrino masses are of the same order as the electroweak symmetry breaking scale, it is usually expected that these will not mediate any experimentally observable effects. Here, I explore the fact that this is not necessarily the case. If neutrino masses are 'accidentally small', active-sterile mixing angles can, according to current experimental bounds, be as large as several percent. If this is the case, I argue that the dominant decay mode of light (M_H less than 130 GeV) Higgs bosons could be into an active and a sterile neutrino. The sterile neutrino decays promptly into a charge lepton and an on- or off-shell W-boson, so that the dominant Higgs boson decay mode is H to leptons + jets + missing transverse energy.
  • seesaw model
  • coupling: Yukawa
  • neutrino: mass
  • neutrino: right-handed
  • neutrino: mixing angle
  • neutrino: sterile
  • Higgs particle: decay modes
  • Higgs particle: width
  • Higgs particle: branching ratio
  • neutrino: emission