Rare weak decays and neutrino mass

Abstract

The question whether neutrinos are Majorana fermions (i.e., their own anti-particles) remains among the most fundamental open questions of subatomic physics. If neutrinos are Majorana particles it would revolutionize our understanding of physics. Although neutrinoless double beta decay, 0νββ, was proposed more than 80 years ago to establish the nature of neutrinos, it remains the most sensitive probe into the non-conservation of lepton number. 0νββ-decay is a postulated extremely slow and yet unobserved radioactive process in which two neutrons (or protons) inside a nucleus transform into two protons (or neutrons) emitting two electrons (or positrons), respectively, but no neutrinos. Its observation would be a breakthrough in the description of elementary particles and would provide fundamental information on the neutrino masses, their nature, and origin. In this paper double beta decay, its connection to neutrino mass, and mechanisms beyond the standard mass mechanism are discussed from a theoretical point of view. The current situation is then addressed by combining theoretical results with recent experimental limits.