Collider Prospects for the Neutrino Magnetic Moment Portal

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential of future high-energy lepton colliders to detect the active-sterile neutrino transition magnetic moment, providing new sensitivity estimates within an effective field theory framework.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of collider prospects for probing the neutrino magnetic moment portal, including new processes and sensitivity estimates for upcoming collider experiments.

Findings

Sensitivity to the magnetic moment can reach approximately 10^{-7} GeV^{-1}.

High-energy lepton colliders significantly improve detection prospects.

Multiple collider options are evaluated for their potential to probe sterile neutrino interactions.

Abstract

The transition magnetic moment between active and sterile neutrinos is theoretically well-motivated scenario beyond the Standard Model, which can be probed in cosmology, astrophysics, and at terrestrial experiments. In this work, we focus on the latter by examining such an interaction at proposed lepton colliders. Specifically, in addition to revisiting LEP, we consider CEPC, FCC-ee, CLIC, and the muon collider, motivated by the potential realization of any of them. Within the effective field theory framework, we present parameter regions that can be probed, highlighting the dependence on the lepton flavor interacting with the sterile neutrino. By including several new processes with large sterile neutrino production cross sections at high-energy lepton colliders, we find that the expected sensitivity for the active-to-sterile neutrino transition magnetic moment can reach $d_\gamma \simeq \mathcal{O}(10^{-7})$ GeV$^{-1}$.