Speaker
Prof.
Anatoly Smolnikov
(MPIK (Heidelberg) / JINR(Dubna))
Description
The investigation of neutrinoless double beta decay (0vββ), violating lepton number, is the only practically viable experimental approach to discriminate between Majorana and Dirac character of neutrinos. The observation of neutrinoless double beta decay would also provide a value of its effective mass [m ββ], and possibly in the future, open the window to study CP violation in the lepton sector induced by Majorana phases. The exchange of a light Majorana neutrino is the most standard interpretation of (0vββ). In spite of that, other more exotic mechanisms are possible beyond the Standard Model, such as heavy neutrinos, non-standard Higgs, SUSY mechanisms and many others for which investigation of (0vββ) can provide very competitive limits.
Several tens of experiments using different isotopes and variety of techniques are searching for this very rare process. Five experiments (GERDA, EXO, KamLAND-Zen, CUORE, NEMO) already reached [m ββ] < 1 eV sensitivity with four different isotopes. Upgraded and new experiments coming to investigate the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy region of [m ββ] < 10 -50 meV. The achieved results, present status of the ongoing experiments as well as expected sensitivities and discovery potentials of the different proposals are reviewed.
Primary author
Prof.
Anatoly Smolnikov
(MPIK (Heidelberg) / JINR(Dubna))
