English

Are Neutrinos Their Own Antiparticles?

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-07-24 v1

Abstract

We explain the relationship between Majorana neutrinos, which are their own antiparticles, and Majorana neutrino masses. We point out that Majorana masses would make the neutrinos very distinctive particles, and explain why many theorists strongly suspect that neutrinos do have Majorana masses. The promising approach to confirming this suspicion is to seek neutrinoless double beta decay. We introduce a toy model that illustrates why this decay requires nonzero neutrino masses, even when there are both right-handed and left-handed weak currents.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0903.0899,
  title  = {Are Neutrinos Their Own Antiparticles?},
  author = {Boris Kayser},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.0899},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

8 pages, pdf

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:18:31.585Z