No Arabic abstract
We investigate some consequences if neutrinoless double beta decays of nuclei are dominated by short range interactions. To illustrate our results, we assume that such decays proceed mainly through short range interactions involving two-W-bosons exchanges and confine ourselves to only include new scalars without new gauge interactions for SM fermions. For the neutrino mass problem we propose to solve it by adopting that the active light neutrinos have predominantly Dirac masses and the small Majorana masses induced by the new scalars render them pseudo(quasi)-Dirac particles. This particular aspect of neutrinos may be detectable in the next generation of neutrino oscillation experiments and/or neutrino telescopes. If so this opens a new connection between neutrinoless double beta decays and neutrino physics. We also noted the new physics signals such as high charged scalar states that can be explored in hadron colliders. In particular, we find that a high energy e^- e^- collider will be very useful in testing the origin of lepton number violation which complements neutrinoless double decays studies.
The available data on neutron scattering were analyzed to constrain a hypothetical new short-range interaction. We show that these constraints are several orders of magnitude better than those usually cited in the range between 1 pm and 5 nm. This distance range occupies an intermediate space between collider searches for strongly coupled heavy bosons and searches for new weak macroscopic forces. We emphasise the reliability of the neutron constraints in so far as they provide several independent strategies. We have identified the most promising way to improve them.
The Schechter-Valle theorem states that a positive observation of neutrinoless double-beta ($0 u beta beta$) decays implies a finite Majorana mass term for neutrinos when any unlikely fine-tuning or cancellation is absent. In this note, we reexamine the quantitative impact of the Schechter-Valle theorem, and find that current experimental lower limits on the half-lives of $0 u beta beta$-decaying nuclei have placed a restrictive upper bound on the Majorana neutrino mass $|delta m^{ee}_ u| < 7.43 times 10^{-29}~{rm eV}$ radiatively generated at the four-loop level. Furthermore, we generalize this quantitative analysis of $0 u beta beta$ decays to that of the lepton-number-violating (LNV) meson decays $M^- to {M^prime}^+ + ell^-_alpha + ell^-_beta$ (for $alpha$, $beta$ = $e$ or $mu$). Given the present upper limits on these rare LNV decays, we have derived the loop-induced Majorana neutrino masses $|delta m^{ee}_ u| < 9.7 times 10^{-18}~{rm eV}$, $|delta m^{emu}_ u| < 1.6 times 10^{-15}~{rm eV}$ and $|delta m^{mu mu}_ u| < 1.0 times 10^{-12}~{rm eV}$ from $K^- to pi^+ + e^- + e^-$, $K^- to pi^+ + e^- + mu^-$ and $K^- to pi^+ + mu^- + mu^-$, respectively. A partial list of radiative neutrino masses from the LNV decays of $D$, $D_s^{}$ and $B$ mesons is also given.
If the present or upcoming searches for neutrinoless double beta decay give a positive result, the Majorana nature of massive neutrinos will be established. From the determination of the value of the effective Majorana mass parameter |<m>|, it would be possible to obtain information on the type of neutrino mass spectrum. Assuming 3-neutrino mixing and massive Majorana neutrinos, we discuss the information a measurement of, or an upper bound on, |<m>| can provide on the value of the lightest neutrino mass m1. With additional data on the neutrino masses obtained in tritium beta decay experiments, it might be possible to establish whether the CP-symmetry is violated in the lepton sector. This would require very high precision measurements. If CP-invariance holds, the allowed patterns of the relative CP-parities of the massive Majorana neutrinos would be determined.
We approach the calculation of the nuclear matrix element of the neutrinoless double-beta decay process, considering the light-neutrino-exchange channel, by way of the realistic shell-model. In particular the focus of our work is spotted on the role of the short-range correlations, which should be taken into account because of the short-range repulsion of the realistic potentials. Our shell-model wave functions are calculated using an effective Hamiltonian derived from the high-precision CD-Bonn nucleon-nucleon potential, the latter renormalized by way of the so-called V-low-k approach. The renormalization procedure decouples the repulsive high-momentum component of the potential from the low-momentum ones by the introduction of a cutoff Lambda, and is employed to renormalize consistently the two-body neutrino potentials to calculate the nuclear matrix elements of candidates to this decay process in mass interval ranging from A=76 up to A=136. We study the dependence of the decay operator on the choice of the cutoff, and compare our results with other approaches that can be found in present literature.
We describe a proposed experimental search for exotic spin-coupled interactions using a solid-state paramagnetic insulator. The experiment is sensitive to the net magnetization induced by the exotic interaction between the unpaired insulator electrons with a dense, non-magnetic mass in close proximity. An existing experiment has been used to set limits on the electric dipole moment of the electron by probing the magnetization induced in a cryogenic gadolinium gallium garnet sample on application of a strong electric field. With suitable additions, including a movable source mass, this experiment can be used to explore monopole-dipole forces on polarized electrons with unique or unprecedented sensitivity. The solid-state, non-magnetic construction, combined with the low-noise conditions and extremely sensitive magnetometry available at cryogenic temperatures could lead to a sensitivity over ten orders of magnitude greater than exiting limits in the range below 1 mm.