Nuclear Structure Aspects of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the nuclear structure aspects of neutrinoless double beta decay, revealing that the decay matrix elements are dominated by the intermediate nucleus's ground state, offering new insights for nuclear models and experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a decomposition method for decay matrix elements, highlighting the dominance of the intermediate nucleus's ground state, aiding model comparison and experimental connection.

Findings

Decay matrix elements are dominated by the intermediate nucleus's 0^+ ground state.

Provides a new theoretical tool for nuclear structure model comparison.

Connects decay processes to two-nucleon transfer experiments.

Abstract

We decompose the neutrinoless double-beta decay matrix elements into sums of products over the intermediate nucleus with two less nucleons. We find that the sum is dominated by the J^pi=0^+ ground state of this intermediate nucleus for both the light and heavy neutrino decay processes. This provides a new theoretical tool for comparing and improving nuclear structure models. It also provides the connection to two-nucleon transfer experiments.