Lunch Seminar Julia Harz, University College London

Title: Confronting Sterile Neutrinos with Experiments

Abstract: The mechanism behind the generation of neutrino masses is one of the
puzzles of modern astroparticle physics. The extension of the Standard
Model by right-handed neutrinos could provide such a mechanism, and is
moreover potentially able to explain the baryon asymmetry of the
Universe and to provide a dark matter candidate. In this context,
sterile neutrinos with masses below the TeV scale are of particular
interest, as they can lead to a plethora of signatures in experimental
searches. I will present a global fit performed with "GAMBIT",
confronting the Standard Model extension by three right-handed neutrinos
with all available constraints, including active neutrino mixing,
electroweak precision observables, lepton universality, neutrinoless
double beta decay and numerous direct searches. Given the complexity of
the parameter space, the aforementioned constraints combine in
non-trivial ways. I will present the most comprehensive analysis to date
and comment on statistically preferred regions in the parameter space.