Simulation of Heavy Majorana Neutrinos in the Large Hadron Collider: From Phenomenology to the Matrix Element Method

Abstract

Many extensions to the standard model include a heavy neutrino with a mass on the few hundred GeV scale, and in some models, heavy neutrinos could be produced at the LHC. I first discuss heavy neutrino collider phenomenology,examining the couplings and relevant cross-sections. Then I simulate heavy Type III seesaw neutrino events and standard model backgrounds in MadGraph, which I use to examine the signal and background kinematics. Finally, I pass these events to MadWeight in order to study the Matrix Element Method and determine how well the signal can be extracted from a set of simulated events.