Impact of Lepton Number Violation at the LHC on Models of Leptogenesis

Abstract: The discovery of lepton number violation (LNV) at the LHC would have profound consequences for the viability of high-scale leptogenesis models. As an example, we discuss the case of observing a signal with two same-sign leptons, two jets and no missing energy. This would imply a large washout factor for the lepton number density in the early Universe, which leads to a significant constraint on any high-scale model for the generation of the observed baryon asymmetry. In a standard leptogenesis scenario, the corresponding washout factor would strongly decrease a pre-existing lepton asymmetry and thus would render leptogenesis models that generate a (B-L) asymmetry far above the LHC scale ineffective. Therefore, LHC searches focused on LNV processes without missing energy are powerful probes for high-scale leptogenesis models and correspondingly shed light on the nature of baryogenesis and neutrino masses.