Improved big bang nucleosynthesis constraints on heavy neutral leptons
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- PhysRevD.104.023517
Final published version, 914 KB, PDF document
We constrain the lifetime of thermally produced heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) from big bang nucleosynthesis. We show that even a small fraction of mesons present in the primeval plasma leads to the overproduction of primordial helium-4. This constrains the lifetime of HNLs to be tau(N) < 0.02 s for masses above the mass of the pion (as compared to 0.1 s reported previously). In combination with accelerator searches, this allows us to put a new lower bound on the HNL masses and define the "bottom line" for HNL searches at the future Intensity Frontier experiments.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 023517 |
Journal | Physical Review D |
Volume | 104 |
Issue number | 2 |
Number of pages | 13 |
ISSN | 2470-0010 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 16 Jul 2021 |
- PRIMORDIAL HELIUM ABUNDANCE, STERILE NEUTRINOS, DARK-MATTER, BOUNDS, VMSM
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