New Benchmark Models for Heavy Neutral Lepton Searches

TL;DR

This paper introduces new benchmark models for heavy neutral lepton searches that better reflect realistic neutrino mass models, improving the interpretation of experimental data in accelerator experiments.

Contribution

It proposes two additional benchmark scenarios for HNL searches, enhancing the realism of phenomenological models used in experimental analyses.

Findings

Two new benchmark models identified based on neutrino oscillation data.

Improved approximation of realistic neutrino mass models in HNL phenomenology.

Enhanced interpretability of experimental results with new benchmarks.

Abstract

The sensitivity of direct searches for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) in accelerator-based experiments depends strongly on the particles properties. Commonly used benchmark scenarios are important to ensure comparability and consistency between experimental searches, re-interpretations, and sensitivity studies at different facilities. In models where the HNLs are primarily produced and decay through the weak interaction, benchmarks are in particular defined by fixing relative strengths of their mixing with SM neutrinos of different flavours, and the interpretation of experimental data is known to strongly depend on those ratios. The commonly used benchmarks in which a single HNL flavour exclusively interacts with one Standard Model generation do not reflect what is found in realistic neutrino mass models. As a part of the activities within CERN's Physics Beyond Colliders initiative we identify two additional benchmarks, which we primarily select based on the requirement to provide a better approximation for the phenomenology of realistic neutrino mass models in view of present and future neutrino oscillation data.