Signature of Majorana neutrinos in equal-sign W-production by lepton scattering

Abstract

The question whether standard-model neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana particles is presently undecided. In principle it could be decided in favor of a Majorana signature if same-sign charged lepton scattering would be observed to produce $W$-boson pairs, which is a lepton-number violating process. The cross section of this scattering process is computed; depending on the initial state the result gives access to different components of the mass matrix. It could also shed light on physics beyond the standard model.