Heavy Sterile Neutrinos and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
Abstract
We investigate the possibility of producing neutrinoless double beta decay
without having an electron neutrino with a mass in the vicinity of 1 eV. We do
so by having a much lighter electron neutrino mix with a much heavier (m > 1
GeV) sterile neutrino. We study the constraints on the masses and mixings of
such heavy sterile neutrinos from existing laboratory, astrophysical and
cosmological information, and discuss the properties it would require in order
to produce a detectable signal in current searches for neutrinoless double beta
decay.