Long-lived sterile neutrinos at Belle II in effective field theory

Abstract

Abstract Large numbers of τ leptons are produced at Belle II. These could potentially decay into sterile neutrinos that, for the mass range under consideration, are typically long-lived, leading to displaced-vertex signatures. Here, we study a displaced-vertex search in the context of the sterile-neutrino-extended Standard Model Effective Field Theory. The production and decay of the sterile neutrinos can be realized via either the standard active-sterile neutrino mixing or higher-dimensional operators in the effective Lagrangian. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations to estimate the Belle II sensitivities to such interactions. We find that Belle II can probe non-renormalizable dimension-six operators involving a single sterile neutrino up to a few TeV in the new-physics scale.