CERN Accelerating science

Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) are hypothetical long-lived particles that extend the Standard Model (SM) and provide a natural explanation for the non-zero neutrino masses. In addition, they could play a key role in addressing some of the most profound open questions in particle physics and cosmology, including the origin of the matter–antimatter asymmetry via baryogenesis. In this poster, we present the status and state-of-the-art of HNL searches at the LHCb experiment. We report the latest and most stringent LHCb limits on muon-coupled HNLs in the 1.6–5 GeV mass range, obtained from a Run 2 (2016–2018) analysis targeting displaced vertices corresponding to HNL flight distances of 0.02–0.5 m. Looking ahead, for Run 3 we introduce a novel reconstruction technique that exploits track segments downstream of the LHCb magnet, thereby extending the accessible displacement window to 0.5–8.0 m. This approach enhances sensitivity dramatically, providing a 40-fold increase in the number of accessible HNL events and extending the lifetime reach by a factor of 16 compared to the Run 2 analysis. A dedicated sensitivity study shows how these improvements translate into a significantly extended reach in the HNL mass–coupling parameter space, positioning LHCb to set world-leading constraints on HNLs.

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Submitted by lhcb.secretariat@cern.ch