TITLE:
Neutrino Properties Probed by Lepton Number Violating Processes
AUTHORS:
Sabin Stoica
KEYWORDS:
Neutrinos; Neutrino Oscillations; Double Beta Decay; Neutrino Mass; Lepton Number Violation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Microphysics,
Vol.3 No.3B,
November
4,
2013
ABSTRACT: Study of neutrino properties is nowadays one of the most
active domains of research in physics. On the one hand, fundamental properties of the
neutrinos like their absolute mass, their character (are they Dirac or Majorana
particles?) and the number of neutrino flavors, are still unknown. On the other
hand, the knowledge of these properties are of great importance since the
neutrinos are very abundant in nature and play a key role in nuclear and
particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. In addition, the results of the
neutrino oscillation experiments have convincingly showed that neutrinos have
mass and mix, in contradiction to the initial assumptions of the Standard
Model. In
this context there is an increased interest in the study of the Lepton Number
Violating (LNV) processes, since they are capable to decide on the above
mentioned neutrino properties. Since recently, the neutrinoless double
beta (0nββ) decay was considered the only
process able to distinguish between Dirac or Majorana neutrinos and to give a
hint on the absolute mass of the electron neutrino. At present, the increased
luminosity of the LHC experiments at CERN makes it feasable the search for LNV
processes at LHC as well. Besides the neutrino character, these studies can also shed light on
the existence of other types of neutrinos (the sterile neutrinos), than the
three known ones. In this paper, I make a brief review on our present knowledge
about the neutrino properties and on the way they can be probed by LNV
processes at low- and high-energies. Particularly, I refer to the 0nββ
decay process and to the first attempts of searching of LNV processes in hadron
collider experiments, particularly in LHC experiments at CERN-Geneva.