Related papers: Ettore Majorana and his heritage seventy years lat…
The evolution of Physics between the second half of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century is presented coupling art and science, in the framework of Ferrara. The main characters are Giuseppe Bongiovanni, Professor of…
We review the particle physics aspects of neutrino-less double beta decay. This process can be mediated by light massive Majorana neutrinos (standard interpretation) or by something else (non-standard interpretations). The physics potential…
Neutrinoless double-beta decay is a hypothesized process where in some even-even nuclei it might be possible for two neutrons to simultaneously decay into two protons and two electrons without emitting neutrinos. This is possible only if…
We propose a closed form for the statistical distribution of non-interacting Majorana fermions at low temperature. Majorana particles often appear in the contemporary many-body literature in the Kitaev, Fu-Kane, or Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev models,…
Ugo Fano has been a leader in theoretical Physics in the XX century giving key contributions to our understanding of quantum phenomena. He passed away on 13 February 2001 after 67 years of research activity. I will focus on his prediction…
Determining the nature -Dirac or Majorana- of massive neutrinos is one of the most pressing and challenging problems in the field of neutrino physics. We discuss how one can possibly extract information on the couplings, if any, which might…
The compelling experimental evidences for oscillations of solar, reactor, atmospheric and accelerator neutrinos imply the existence of 3-neutrino mixing in the weak charged lepton current. The current data on the 3-neutrino mixing…
In November 2014 Alexander Grothendieck passed away at the age of 86. There is no doubt that he was one of the greatest and most innovative mathematicians of the 20th century. After a bitter childhood, his meteoric ascent started in the…
The observation of neutrino oscillations has proven that neutrinos have mass. This is direct evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. This discovery has renewed interest in neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) experiments…
The nature of a neutrino, whether it is a Dirac type or Majorana type, may be comprehensively probed using their quantum statistical properties. If the neutrino is a Majorana fermion, then by definition it is identical and indistinguishable…
Neutrinoless double beta decay, which is a very old and yet elusive process, is reviewed. Its observation will signal that lepton number is not conserved and the neutrinos are Majorana particles. More importantly it is our best hope for…
This is an elementary account of neutrinos as Majarona particles and the search for neutrinoless double beta decays. It also includes some more ideas about neutrinos.
We study the decay of heavy sterile Majorana neutrinos according to the interactions obtained from an effective general theory. We describe the two and three-body decays for a wide range of neutrino masses. The results obtained and…
The observed flavor oscillations of solar and atmospheric neutrinos determine several elements of the leptonic mixing matrix, but leave open the small mixing angle Theta_13, a possible CP-violating phase, the mass ordering, the absolute…
This is a colloquium-style introduction to the midgap excitations in superconductors known as Majorana fermions. These elusive particles, equal to their own antiparticle, may or may not exist in Nature as elementary building blocks, but in…
About a century ago, cosmic rays were identified as being a source of radiation on Earth. The proof came from two independent experiments. The Italian physicist Domenico Pacini observed the radiation strength to decrease when going from the…
In the space of less than one decade, the search for Majorana quasiparticles in condensed matter has become one of the hottest topics in physics. The aim of this review is to provide a brief perspective of where we are with strong focus on…
This article summarizes the possible roles of neutrinos in cosmology, from the first three minutes onward. The fact that primordial neutrinos are about as numerous as the photons of the cosmological background radiation means that neutrino…
Present limits on neutrino masses are briefly reviewed, along with cosmological and astrophysical hints from dark matter, solar and atmospheric neutrino observations that suggest neutrino masses. These would imply many possible new…
Dark Energy is currently one of the biggest mysteries in science. In this article the origin of the concept is traced as far back as Newton and Hooke in the seventeenth century. Newton considered, along with the inverse square law, a force…