Speaker
Description
Neutrinoless double beta decay (0nbb) experiments are the strongest probe of lepton number violation (LNV). While an observation of 0nbb will indicate that neutrinos are Majorana particles and will have profound implications on several open problems in particle physics, from the origin of neutrino masses to the generation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe, the present and next generation of experiments are sensitive to a variety of LNV mechanisms, including models in which LNV arises at very high scales and scenarios with new degrees of freedom at the TeV or electroweak scales. In this talk, I will discuss how effective field theories (EFT) provide an organizational principle for a model independent interpretation of 0nbb experiments. By performing a series of matching steps in which degrees of freedom of virtualities much larger than the typical nuclear scales are progressively integrated out, EFTs allow us to systematically classify the hadronic input and to consistently construct the 0nbb transition operators induced by standard and non-standard mechanism. These steps are necessary for the calculation of 0nbb nuclear matrix elements with controlled uncertainties.
