Zooming in on eV-MeV Scale Sterile Neutrinos in light of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

TL;DR

This paper investigates how light sterile neutrinos in the eV to MeV range, within specific models, influence neutrinoless double beta decay, providing constraints on neutrino properties based on experimental data.

Contribution

It analyzes the impact of sterile neutrinos on neutrinoless double beta decay within two models, offering new constraints on neutrino parameters from experimental limits.

Findings

Sterile neutrinos significantly affect decay half-life predictions.

Experimental limits constrain sterile-active neutrino mixing.

Models can be tested against current neutrinoless double beta decay data.

Abstract

The existence of light sterile neutrinos, as predicted in several models, can help to explain a number of observations starting from dark mater to recent anomalies in short baseline experiments. In this paper we consider two models - Left-Right Symmetric Zee model and Extended Seesaw model, that can naturally accommodate the presence of light sterile neutrinos in the eV to MeV mass scale. We perform a detailed study on the neutrinoless double beta decay process which receives major contributions from diagrams involving these light sterile neutrinos. Considering a number of theoretical and experimental constraints, including light neutrino masses and mixings, unitarity of the mixing matrix etc., we compare our predicted values of the half-life of neutrinoless double beta decay with the experimental limits. This can put significant constraints on the neutrino mass, active-sterile neutrino mixing and several other important parameters in these models.