Neutrinoless double beta decay and neutrino mass

Understand

The observation of neutrinoless double beta decay will have important consequences.

• First it will signal that lepton number is not conserved and the neutrinos are Majorana particles.
• Second, it represents our best hope for determining the absolute neutrino mass scale at the level of a few tens of meV.
• To achieve the last goal, however, certain hurdles have to be overcome involving particle, nuclear and experimental physics.