Extending the Kinematic Range for $W_R$ Searches in $e^-e^-$ Collisions at the NLC

Abstract

While the much discussed lepton-number violating process $e^-e^-\rightarrow W_R^-W_R^-$ provides an excellent probe of both the Majorana nature of the right-handed neutrino and the symmetry breaking sector of the Left-Right Symmetric Model, it is likely that $W_R$'s are too massive to be pair produced at the NLC with $\sqrt {s}$ in the 1-1.5 TeV range. We are thus lead to consider the single $W_R$ production process $e^-e^-\rightarrow W_R^-(W_R^-)^* \rightarrow W_R^-+jj$ in order to expand the collider's kinematic reach. After pointing out that $W_R$'s with masses of order 1 TeV may be missed by future hadron collider searches, we demonstrate that this three-body process possesses a significant cross section, of order several fb, at the NLC with $\sqrt {s}$ in the range above. The angular distribution of the produced $W_R$'s is shown to be essentially flat and the potential backgrounds from standard model processes are shown to be small.