Shell Model Analysis of the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay of $^{48}$Ca

The neutrinoless double beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay process could provide crucial information to determine the absolute scale of the neutrino masses, and it is the only one that can establish whether neutrino is a Dirac or a Majorana particle. A key ingredient for extracting the absolute neutrino masses from $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay experiments is a precise knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements (NME) describing the half-life of this process. We developed a new shell model approach for computing the $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay NME, and we used it to analyze the $0\nu\beta\beta$ mode of $^{48}$Ca. The dependence of the NME on the short range correlations parameters, on the average energy of the intermediate states, on the finite-size cutoff parameters, and on the effective interaction used for the many-body calculations is discussed.