Search for heavy neutral lepton production in $K^{+}$ decays to positrons

Abstract

A search for heavy neutral lepton ($N$) production in $K^{+}\to e^{+}N$ decays using the data sample collected by the NA62 experiment at CERN in 2017--2018 is reported. Upper limits of the extended neutrino mixing matrix element $|U_{e4}{|}^2$ are established at the level of $10^{-9}$ over most of the accessible heavy neutral lepton mass range 144--462 MeV/$c^2$, with the assumption that the lifetime exceeds 50 ns. These limits improve significantly upon those of previous production and decay searches. The $|U_{e4}{|}^2$ range favoured by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis is excluded up to a mass of about 340 MeV/$c^2$.

arXiv commentVersion accepted for publication in Physics Letters B (28 June 2020)

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