Analysis of mechanisms that could contribute to the neutrinoless double-beta decay

TL;DR

This paper explores how angular and energy distributions of electrons from neutrinoless double-beta decay can reveal underlying physics mechanisms, using shell model calculations of nuclear matrix elements.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze decay distributions assuming right-handed currents, aiding in distinguishing beyond Standard Model contributions.

Findings

Calculated nuclear matrix elements using shell model techniques.

Demonstrated how decay distributions can indicate the presence of right-handed currents.

Provided insights into differentiating mechanisms contributing to neutrinoless double-beta decay.

Abstract

Neutrinoless double-beta decay, if observed, would signal physics beyond the Standard Model that could be discovered at energies significantly lower than those at which the relevant degrees of freedom could be excited. Therefore, it could be challenging to further use the neutrinoless double-beta decay observations to distinguish between many beyond Standard Model mechanisms contributing to this process. Accurate nuclear structure calculations of the nuclear matrix elements necessary to analyze the decay rates could be helpful to narrow down the list of contributing mechanisms, and to better identify the more exotic properties of the neutrinos. We investigate the information one can get from the angular and energy distribution of the emitted electron assuming that the right-handed currents exist. For the analysis of these distributions we calculate the necessary nuclear matrix elements using shell model techniques.