The search for Majorana neutrinos with neutrinoless double beta decays: From CUORICINO to LUCIFER experiment

Journal Article · Tue Nov 20 04:00:00 EST 2012 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4768501· OSTI ID:22075813

Bellini, F ^[1]

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1. Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Universita di Roma, Roma I-00185 (Italy) and INFN - Sezione di Roma, Roma I-00185 (Italy)

The study of neutrino properties is one of the fundamental challenges in particle physics nowadays. Fifty years of investigations established that neutrinos are massive but the absolute mass scale has not yet been measured. Moreover its true nature is still unknown. Is the neutrino its own antiparticle (thus violating the lepton number) as proposed by Majorana in 1937? The only way to probe the neutrino nature is through the observation of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (0{nu}{beta}{beta}), a very rare spontaneous nuclear transition which emits two electrons and no neutrinos. In this paper, after a brief introduction to the theoretical framework of Majorana's neutrino, a presentation of experimental challenges posed by 0{nu}{beta}{beta} search will be given as well as an overview of present status and future perpectives of experiments.

• OSTI ID: 22075813
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 1498; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
ANTIPARTICLES
DOUBLE BETA DECAY
ELECTRON EMISSION
ELECTRONS
LEPTON NUMBER
NEUTRINOS
NUCLEAR FORCES
REST MASS