Quantum Effects on Higgs-Boson Production and Decay due to Majorana Neutrinos

We analyze the phenomenological implications for new electroweak physics in the Higgs sector in the framework of SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y theories that naturally predict heavy Majorana neutrinos. We calculate the one-loop Majorana-neutrino contributions to the decay rates of the Higgs boson into pairs of quarks and intermediate bosons and to its production cross section via bremsstrahlung in e^+e^- collisions. It turns out that these are extremely small in three- generation models. On the other hand, the sizeable quantum corrections generated by a conventional fourth generation with a Dirac neutrino may be screened considerably in the presence of a Majorana degree of freedom.