Influence of a keV sterile neutrino on neutrinoless double beta decay: How things changed in recent years

Earlier studies of the influence of dark matter keV sterile neutrinos on neutrinoless double beta decay concluded that there is no significant modification of the decay rate. These studies have focused only on a mass of the keV sterile neutrino above 2 and 4 keV, respectively, as motivated by certai...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. D, Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology, 2013-12, Vol.88 (11), Article 113004
Main Authors: Merle, Alexander, Niro, Viviana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beta decay
Cosmology
Dark matter
Decay
Decay rate
Gravitation
Neutrinos
X-rays
XMM (spacecraft)
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Summary:Earlier studies of the influence of dark matter keV sterile neutrinos on neutrinoless double beta decay concluded that there is no significant modification of the decay rate. These studies have focused only on a mass of the keV sterile neutrino above 2 and 4 keV, respectively, as motivated by certain production mechanisms. On the other hand, alternative production mechanisms have been proposed, which relax the lower limit for the mass, and new experimental data are available, too. For this reason, an updated study is timely and worthwhile. We focus on the most recent data, i.e., the newest Chandra and XMM-Newton observational bounds on the x-ray line originating from radiative keV sterile neutrino decay, as well as the new measurement of the previously unknown leptonic mixing angle [straighttheta] sub(13). While the previous works might have been a little short-sighted, the new observational bounds do indeed render any influences of keV sterile neutrinos on neutrinoless double beta decay small. This conclusion even holds in case not all the dark matter is made up of keV sterile neutrinos.
ISSN:1550-7998
1550-2368
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.88.113004