The Quest for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay: Progress and Prospects

TL;DR

This review discusses the theoretical basis, experimental methods, current results, and future prospects for detecting neutrinoless double beta decay, a process with profound implications for particle physics and cosmology.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical and experimental progress in the search for neutrinoless double beta decay, highlighting technological challenges and future directions.

Findings

Current experiments have set the most sensitive limits on decay rates.

Multiple detection techniques offer complementary approaches.

Future technological advances are crucial for potential discovery.

Abstract

Neutrinoless double beta decay is a hypothetical nuclear transition whose observation would demonstrate that neutrinos are their own antiparticles and that lepton number is not conserved, with far-reaching implications for the origin of neutrino mass and the matter-antimatter imbalance in the Universe. This review examines the theoretical foundations of this process and surveys the principal experimental strategies developed to search for it, focusing on their operating concepts, strengths, and limitations. We summarize the current experimental landscape by presenting the most sensitive results achieved so far and by outlining the complementary approaches pursued by different detection techniques. Finally, we discuss the future direction of the field, emphasizing the technological advances needed to reach substantially better sensitivities and, ultimately, to detect this rare phenomenon