Neutrino Mass and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

Abstract

The motivation for the search for $0νββ$ decay is briefly reviewed. It is stressed that the exchange of light Majorana neutrinos is not the only possible mechanism of the decay. The link between lepton number and lepton flavor violation is described and its role in elucidating the $0νββ$-decay mechanism is discussed. The main topic of the talk is the evaluation of the nuclear matrix elements and their uncertainty. Various physics effects that influence the value of the matrix elements are described and the results of the two main methods, the quasiparticle random phase approximation and the nuclear shell model, are compared.

Talk at the "Neutrino Oscillations in Venice" workshop, Venice, April 2008