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Double beta decay, Majorana neutrinos, and neutrino mass
Ist Teil von
Reviews of modern physics, 2008-04, Vol.80 (2), p.481-516
Ort / Verlag
United States
Erscheinungsjahr
2008
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
American Physical Society
Beschreibungen/Notizen
The theoretical and experimental issues relevant to neutrinoless double beta decay are reviewed. The impact that a direct observation of this exotic process would have on elementary particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, and cosmology is profound. Now that neutrinos are known to have mass and experiments are becoming more sensitive, even the nonobservation of neutrinoless double beta decay will be useful. If the process is actually observed, we will immediately learn much about the neutrino. The status and discovery potential of proposed experiments are reviewed in this context, with significant emphasis on proposals favored by recent panel reviews. The importance of and challenges in the calculation of nuclear matrix elements that govern the decay are considered in detail. The increasing sensitivity of experiments and improvements in nuclear theory make the future exciting for this field at the interface of nuclear and particle physics.