Speaker
Karoline Schaeffner
(LNGS)
Description
More than 80 years after the postulation of the neutrino important properties of this particleare still unknown. In case neutrinos are Majorana particles [1], which implies the presence of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, an extremely rare process should be observable, namely the so-called Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay (0vDBD) [2]. Its experimental observation would prove that neutrinos are their own anti-particles, that lepton number is not conserved and, more importantly, it would set constraints on the mass scale of the neutrinos at the level of a few tens of meV, important answers to outstanding questions in present-day physics. The present contribution reviews the different experimental approaches and results which have been performed and achieved in the past. Furthermore, next generation experiments using different isotopes and experimental techniques in order to explore the inverted hierarchy region will be discussed. An overview on the expected sensitivities of future experiments will be given.
[1] E. Majorana, Il Nuovo Cimento 14, 171 (1937).
[2] F. T. Avignone, S. R. Elliott and J. Engel, Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, 481 (2008).
