Search for heavy neutral leptons in decays of W bosons using a dilepton displaced vertex in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for a long-lived, heavy neutral lepton (N) in 139 fb⁻¹ of √s = 13 TeV pp collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is reported. The N is produced via W→Nμ or W→Ne and decays into two charged leptons and a neutrino, forming a displaced vertex. The N mass is used to discriminate between signal and background. No signal is observed, and limits are set on the squared mixing parameters of the N with the left-handed neutrino states for the N mass range 3 GeV <mN<15 GeV. For the first time, limits are given for both single-flavor and multiflavor mixing scenarios motivated by neutrino flavor oscillation results for both the normal and inverted neutrino-mass hierarchies.