Effective Majorana Mass and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the probability distribution of the effective Majorana mass in neutrino physics, considering various factors like mixing angles, phases, and cosmological bounds, to inform neutrinoless double beta decay experiments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive statistical analysis of the effective Majorana mass considering current experimental and cosmological constraints.

Findings

Small effective mass values depend on Majorana phases.

Cosmological bounds significantly restrict the parameter space.

Prospects for detecting neutrinoless double beta decay vary with isotope and experimental sensitivity.

Abstract

The probability distribution for the effective Majorana mass as a function of the lightest neutrino mass in the standard three neutrino scheme is computed via a random sampling from the distributions of the involved mixing angles and squared mass diffences. A flat distribution in the [0,2pi] range for the Majorana phases is assumed, and the dependence of small values of the effective mass on the Majorana phases is highlighted. The study is then extended with the addition of the cosmological bound on the sum of the neutrino masses. Finally, the prospects for neutrinoless double beta decay search with 76Ge, 130Te and 136Xe are discussed, as well as those for the measurement of the electron neutrino mass.