Nearly degenerate heavy sterile neutrinos in cascade decay: Mixing and oscillations

Daniel Boyanovsky
Phys. Rev. D 90, 105024 – Published 20 November 2014

Abstract

Some extensions beyond the Standard Model propose the existence of nearly degenerate heavy sterile neutrinos. If kinematically allowed these can be resonantly produced and decay in a cascade to common final states. The common decay channels lead to mixing of the heavy sterile neutrino states and interference effects. We implement nonperturbative methods to study the dynamics of the cascade decay to common final states, which features similarities but also noteworthy differences with the case of neutral meson mixing. We show that mixing and oscillations among the nearly degenerate sterile neutrinos can be detected as quantum beats in the distribution of final states produced from their decay. These oscillations would be a telltale signal of mixing between heavy sterile neutrinos. We study in detail the case of two nearly degenerate sterile neutrinos produced in the decay of pseudoscalar mesons and decaying into a purely leptonic “visible” channel: νhe+eνa. Possible cosmological implications for the effective number of neutrinos Neff are discussed.

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  • Received 15 September 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.90.105024

© 2014 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Daniel Boyanovsky*

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA

  • *boyan@pitt.edu

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Issue

Vol. 90, Iss. 10 — 15 November 2014

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