Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay and Light Sterile Neutrino

Abstract

Recent neutrino experiment results show a preference for the normal neutrino mass ordering. The global efforts to search for neutrinoless double beta decays undergo a broad gap with the approach to the prediction in the three-neutrino framework based on the normal ordering. This research is intended to show that it is possible to find a neutrinoless double beta decay signal even with normal ordered neutrino masses. We propose the existence of a light sterile neutrino as a solution to the higher effective mass of the electron neutrino expected by the current experiments. A few short-baseline oscillation experiments gave rise to a limit on the mass of the sterile neutrino and its mixing with the lightest neutrino. We demonstrate that the results of neutrinoless double beta decays can also narrow down the range of the mass and the mixing angle of the light sterile neutrino.