Neutrino Masses

Abstract

The various experiments on neutrino oscillation evidenced that neutrinos have indeed non-zero masses but cannot tell us the absolute neutrino mass scale. This scale of neutrino masses is very important for understanding the evolution and the structure formation of the universe as well as for nuclear and particle physics beyond the present Standard Model. Complementary to deducing constraints on the sum of all neutrino masses from cosmological observations two different methods to determine the neutrino mass scale in the laboratory are pursued: the search for neutrinoless double $\beta$-decay and the direct neutrino mass search by investigating single $\beta$-decays or electron captures. The former method is not only sensitive to neutrino masses but also probes the Majorana character of neutrinos and thus lepton number violation with high sensitivity. Currently quite a few experiments with different techniques are being constructed, commissioned or are even running, which aim for a sensitivity on the neutrino mass of {\cal O}(100) meV. The principle methods and these experiments will be discussed in this short review.

Invited mini review, 22 pages, 7 figures, 73 references

References in corpus (14)

• Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay in ${}^{136}$Xe with EXO-200
• Limit on Neutrinoless ββ Decay of Xe-136 from the First Phase of KamLAND-Zen and Comparison with the Positive Claim in Ge-76
• The 0nbb-decay nuclear matrix elements with self-consistent short-range correlations
• The GERDA experiment for the search of 0νββ decay in ^{76}Ge
• Current Direct Neutrino Mass Experiments
• Light Sterile Neutrinos: Models and Phenomenology
• A search for a doubly-charged Higgs boson in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
• Precision high voltage divider for the KATRIN experiment
• Search for heavy Majorana neutrinos in mu+mu+[mu-mu-]+jets and e+e+[e-e-]+jets events in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
• Detecting sterile neutrinos with KATRIN like experiments
• Measurement of the half-life of the two-neutrino double beta decay of Ge-76 with the Gerda experiment
• KATRIN Sensitivity to Sterile Neutrino Mass in the Shadow of Lightest Neutrino Mass
• Prototype of an angular-selective photoelectron calibration source for the KATRIN experiment
• Relativistic Cyclotron Radiation Detection of Tritium Decay Electrons as a New Technique for Measuring the Neutrino Mass

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay: a Probe of Physics Beyond the Standard Model
• The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Angular clustering tomography and its cosmological implications
• Status of the Zee-Babu model for neutrino mass and possible tests at a like-sign linear collider
• New Paradigm for Baryon and Lepton Number Violation
• Working principle and demonstrator of microwave-multiplexing for the HOLMES experiment microcalorimeters
• Probing the neutrino mass ordering with KM3NeT-ORCA: Analysis and perspectives
• A search for the radiative neutrinoless double electron capture of ${}^{58}$Ni
• Neutrino Experiments and the LHC: Friends Across 14 Orders of Magnitude
• Can we use heavy nuclei to detect relic neutrinos?