Short-Range Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Mechanisms

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical framework for short-range mechanisms of neutrinoless double beta decay, deriving nuclear matrix elements and phase space factors to better understand potential non-standard contributions to this lepton number violating process.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive theoretical description of short-range effective operators for neutrinoless double beta decay, including detailed derivations of nuclear matrix elements and decay observables.

Findings

Derived general formulas for decay half-life and electron angular correlation.

Provided detailed nuclear matrix elements for short-range mechanisms.

Enhanced understanding of non-standard contributions to neutrinoless double beta decay.

Abstract

Neutrinoless double beta decay can significantly help to shed light on the issue of non-zero neutrino mass, as observation of this lepton number violating process would imply neutrinos are Majorana particles. However, the underlying interaction does not have to be as simple as the standard neutrino mass mechanism. The entire variety of neutrinoless double beta decay mechanisms can be approached effectively. In this work we focus on a theoretical description of short-range effective contributions to neutrinoless double beta decay, which are equivalent to 9-dimensional effective operators incorporating the appropriate field content. We give a detailed derivation of the nuclear matrix elements and phase space factors corresponding to individual terms of the effective Lagrangian. Using these, we provide general formulae for the neutrinoless double beta decay half-life and angular correlation of the outgoing electrons.