Revisiting the LHC reach in the displaced region of the minimal left-right symmetric model

Abstract

We revisit discovery prospects for a long-lived sterile neutrino N at the LHC in the context of left-right symmetric theories. We focus on a displaced vertex search strategy sensitive to O(GeV) neutrino masses produced via a right-handed WR boson. Both on-shell and off-shell Drell-Yan production of WR are considered. We estimate the reach as a function of mN and mWR. With s=13 TeV and 300/fb of integrated luminosity, the LHC can probe neutrino masses as high as approximately 30 GeV and mWR around 6 TeV. The reach goes up to 11.5 TeV with 3000/fb and mN∼45 GeV. This represents an improvement of a factor of 2 in sensitivity with respect to earlier work.