Heavy Physics Contributions to Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay from QCD

A. Nicholson, E. Berkowitz, H. Monge-Camacho, D. Brantley, N. Garron, C. C. Chang, E. Rinaldi, M. A. Clark, B. Joó, T. Kurth, B. C. Tiburzi, P. Vranas, and A. Walker-Loud

Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 172501 – Published 25 October 2018

Abstract

Observation of neutrinoless double beta decay, a lepton number violating process that has been proposed to clarify the nature of neutrino masses, has spawned an enormous world-wide experimental effort. Relating nuclear decay rates to high-energy, beyond the standard model (BSM) physics requires detailed knowledge of nonperturbative QCD effects. Using lattice QCD, we compute the necessary matrix elements of short-range operators, which arise due to heavy BSM mediators, that contribute to this decay via the leading order $π^{-} \to π^{+}$ exchange diagrams. Utilizing our result and taking advantage of effective field theory methods will allow for model-independent calculations of the relevant two-nucleon decay, which may then be used as input for nuclear many-body calculations of the relevant experimental decays. Contributions from short-range operators may prove to be equally important to, or even more important than, those from long-range Majorana neutrino exchange.

Received 16 May 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.172501

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Lattice QCD Lattice field theory Neutrinoless double beta decay

Nuclear PhysicsParticles & Fields

Authors & Affiliations

A. Nicholson^1,2,*, E. Berkowitz³, H. Monge-Camacho^4,5, D. Brantley^4,6,5, N. Garron⁷, C. C. Chang^8,2,5, E. Rinaldi^9,5, M. A. Clark¹⁰, B. Joó¹¹, T. Kurth¹², B. C. Tiburzi^13,14, P. Vranas^6,5, and A. Walker-Loud^5,6,2

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27516-3255, USA
²Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
³Institut für Kernphysik and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 54245 Jülich, Germany
⁴Department of Physics, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23187, USA
⁵Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
⁶Physics Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA
⁷Theoretical Physics Division, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom
⁸Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program (iTHEMS), RIKEN 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
⁹RIKEN-BNL Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
¹⁰NVIDIA Corporation, 2701 San Tomas Expressway, Santa Clara, California 95050, USA
¹¹Scientific Computing Group, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, Virginia 23606, USA
¹²NERSC Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
¹³Department of Physics, The City College of New York, New York, New York 10031, USA
¹⁴Graduate School and University Center, The City University of New York, New York, New York 10016, USA