Ab initio short-range nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double-beta decay

Abstract

We present converged ab initio calculations of short-range neutrinoless double-beta ($0νββ$) decay nuclear matrix elements for the key experimental isotopes $^{76}$Ge, $^{82}$Se, $^{130}$Te and $^{136}$Xe. Starting from different nuclear forces derived from chiral effective field theory, we apply the in-medium similarity renormalization group to obtain an effective valence-space Hamiltonian along with consistently transformed $0νββ$-decay operators. We then obtain a range of values for the matrix elements that is consistent with, but generally smaller than, those from phenomenology. Finally, we combine our results with current limits from $0νββ$-decay searches to obtain constraints for the sterile-neutrino mixing-mass parameter space when considering the inclusion of a fourth, sterile neutrino.