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Register a new userSterile neutrinos and neutrinoless double beta decay in effective field theory
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We investigate neutrinoless double beta decay ($0 ubetabeta$) in the presence of sterile neutrinos with Majorana mass terms. These gauge-singlet fields are allowed to interact with Standard-Model (SM) fields via renormalizable Yukawa couplings as well as higher-dimensional gauge-invariant operators up to dimension seven in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory extended with sterile neutrinos. At the GeV scale, we use Chiral effective field theory involving sterile neutrinos to connect the operators at the level of quarks and gluons to hadronic interactions involving pions and nucleons. This allows us to derive an expression for $0 ubetabeta$ rates for various isotopes in terms of phase-space factors, hadronic low-energy constants, nuclear matrix elements, the neutrino masses, and the Wilson coefficients of higher-dimensional operators. The needed hadronic low-energy constants and nuclear matrix elements depend on the neutrino masses, for which we obtain interpolation formulae grounded in QCD and chiral perturbation theory that improve existing formulae that are only valid in a small regime of neutrino masses. The resulting framework can be used directly to assess the impact of $0 ubetabeta$ experiments on scenarios with light sterile neutrinos and should prove useful in global analyses of sterile-neutrino searches. We perform several phenomenological studies of $0 ubetabeta$ in the presence of sterile neutrinos with and without higher-dimensional operators. We find that non-standard interactions involving sterile neutrinos have a dramatic impact on $0 ubetabeta$ phenomenology, and next-generation experiments can probe such interactions up to scales of $mathcal O(100)$ TeV.
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We present a master formula describing the neutrinoless-double-beta decay ($0 ubetabeta$) rate induced by lepton-number-violating (LNV) operators up to dimension nine in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory. We provide an end-to-end framework connecting the possibly very high LNV scale to the nuclear scale, through a chain of effective field theories. Starting at the electroweak scale, we integrate out the heavy Standard Model degrees of freedom and we match to an $SU(3)_cotimes U(1)_{mathrm{em}}$ effective theory. After evolving the resulting effective Lagrangian to the QCD scale, we use chiral perturbation theory to derive the lepton-number-violating chiral Lagrangian. The chiral Lagrangian is used to derive the two-nucleon $0 ubetabeta$ transition operators to leading order in the chiral power counting. Based on renormalization arguments we show that in various cases short-range two-nucleon operators need to be enhanced to leading order. We show that all required nuclear matrix elements can be taken from existing calculations. Our final result is a master formula that describes the $0 ubetabeta$ rate in terms of phase-space factors, nuclear matrix elements, hadronic low-energy constants, QCD evolution factors, and high-energy LNV Wilson coefficients, including all the interference terms. Our master formula can be easily matched to any model where LNV originates at energy scales above the electroweak scale. As an explicit example, we match our formula to the minimal left-right-symmetric model in which contributions of operators of different dimension compete, and we discuss the resulting phenomenology.
Neutrinoless double beta decay, which is a very old and yet elusive process, is reviewed. Its observation will signal that lepton number is not conserved and the neutrinos are Majorana particles. More importantly it is our best hope for determining the absolute neutrino mass scale at the level of a few tens of meV. To achieve the last goal certain hurdles have to be overcome involving particle, nuclear and experimental physics. Nuclear physics is important for extracting the useful information from the data. One must accurately evaluate the relevant nuclear matrix elements, a formidable task. To this end, we review the sophisticated nuclear structure approaches recently been developed, which give confidence that the needed nuclear matrix elements can be reliably calculated. From an experimental point of view it is challenging, since the life times are long and one has to fight against formidable backgrounds. If a signal is found, it will be a tremendous accomplishment. Then, of course, the real task is going to be the extraction of the neutrino mass from the observations. This is not trivial, since current particle models predict the presence of many mechanisms other than the neutrino mass, which may contribute or even dominate this process. We will, in particular, consider the following processes: (i)The neutrino induced, but neutrino mass independent contribution. (ii)Heavy left and/or right handed neutrino mass contributions. (iii)Intermediate scalars (doubly charged etc). (iv)Supersymmetric (SUSY) contributions. We will show that it is possible to disentangle the various mechanisms and unambiguously extract the important neutrino mass scale, if all the signatures of the reaction are searched in a sufficient number of nuclear isotopes.
We study possible contribution of the Majorana neutrino mass eigenstate $ u_h$ dominated by a sterile neutrino component to neutrinoless double beta ($0 ubetabeta$) decay. From the current experimental lower bound on the $0 ubetabeta$-decay half-life of $^{76}$Ge we derive stringent constraints on the $ u_h- u_e$ mixing in a wide region of the values of $ u_h$ mass. We discuss cosmological and astrophysical status of $ u_h$ in this mass region.
We discuss the contributions of lepton-number-violating sources to neutrinoless double beta decay ($0 ubetabeta$). Assuming that these sources arise at scales well above the electroweak scale, they can be described within an effective field theory. Here, we outline the steps required to express the $0 ubetabeta$ half-life in terms of the effective interactions, focusing on the dimension-five operator that induces a Majorana mass for the neutrinos. This process involves the evolution of the operators down to scales of a few GeV where they can be matched onto Chiral Perturbation Theory. The resulting Chiral Lagrangian can then used be to derive the lepton-number violating potential, which, in combination with many-body methods, gives the $0 ubetabeta$ half-life. We will show that consistent renormalization requires the inclusion of a new contact interaction at leading order in this potential. We also briefly comment on the constraints that can be set on the operators appearing beyond dimension five.
Recent neutrino experiment results show a preference for the normal neutrino mass ordering. The global efforts to search for neutrinoless double beta decays undergo a broad gap with the approach to the prediction in the three-neutrino framework based on the normal ordering. This research is intended to show that it is possible to find a neutrinoless double beta decay signal even with normal ordered neutrino masses. We propose the existence of a light sterile neutrino as a solution to the higher effective mass of the electron neutrino expected by the current experiments. A few short-baseline oscillation experiments gave rise to a limit on the mass of the sterile neutrino and its mixing with the lightest neutrino. We demonstrate that the results of neutrinoless double beta decays can also narrow down the range of the mass and the mixing angle of the light sterile neutrino.
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