$gammagamma$ decay as a probe of neutrinoless $betabeta$ decay nuclear matrix elements

We study double gamma ($gammagamma$) decay nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) for a wide range of nuclei from titanium to xenon, and explore their relation to neutrinoless double-beta ($0 ubetabeta$) NMEs. To favor the comparison, we focus on double-magnetic dipole transitions in the final $betabeta$ nuclei, in particular the $gammagamma$ decay of the double isobaric analog of the initial $betabeta$ state into the ground state. For the most probable decay with equal-energy photons, our large-scale nuclear shell model results show a good linear correlation between the $gammagamma$ and $0 ubetabeta$ NMEs. Our analysis reveals that the correlation holds for $gammagamma$ transitions driven by the spin or orbital angular momentum due to the dominance of zero-coupled nucleon pairs, a feature common to $0 ubetabeta$ decay. Our findings point out the potential of future $gammagamma$ decay measurements to constrain $0 ubetabeta$ NMEs, which are key to answer fundamental physics questions based on $0 ubetabeta$ experiments.