Zooming in on eV-MeV Scale Sterile Neutrinos in light of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

Abstract

The existence of light sterile neutrinos, as predicted in several models, can help to explain a number of observations starting from dark mater to recent anomalies in short baseline experiments. In this paper we consider two models - Left-Right Symmetric Zee model and Extended Seesaw model, that can naturally accommodate the presence of light sterile neutrinos in the eV to MeV mass scale. We perform a detailed study on the neutrinoless double beta decay process which receives major contributions from diagrams involving these light sterile neutrinos. Considering a number of theoretical and experimental constraints, including light neutrino masses and mixings, unitarity of the mixing matrix etc., we compare our predicted values of the half-life of neutrinoless double beta decay with the experimental limits. This can put significant constraints on the neutrino mass, active-sterile neutrino mixing and several other important parameters in these models.