English

Can one ever prove that neutrinos are Dirac particles?

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2018-05-09 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Experiment Nuclear Theory

Abstract

According to the "Black Box" theorem the experimental confirmation of neutrinoless double beta decay (0ν2β0 \nu 2 \beta) would imply that at least one of the neutrinos is a Majorana particle. However, a null 0ν2β0 \nu 2 \beta signal cannot decide the nature of neutrinos, as it can be suppressed even for Majorana neutrinos. In this letter we argue that if the null 0ν2β0 \nu 2 \beta decay signal is accompanied by a 0ν4β0 \nu 4 \beta quadruple beta decay signal, then at least one neutrino should be a Dirac particle. This argument holds irrespective of the underlying processes leading to such decays.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.06181,
  title  = {Can one ever prove that neutrinos are Dirac particles?},
  author = {Martin Hirsch and Rahul Srivastava and José W. F. Valle},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.06181},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures