Loop-enhanced rate of neutrinoless double beta decay

Neutrino masses can be generated radiatively. In such scenarios their masses are calculated by evaluating a self-energy diagram with vanishing external momentum, i.e. taking only the leading order term in a momentum expansion. The difference between the full self-energy and the mass is experimentally difficult to access, since one needs off-shell neurinos to observe them. However, massive Majorana neutrinos that mediate neutrinoless double beta decay ($0νββ$) are off-shell, with the virtuality of order 100 MeV. If the energy scale of the self-energy loop is of the order of this virtuality, the amplitude of double beta decay can be modified by the unsuppressed loop effect. This can have a drastic impact on the interpretation of future observations of the $0νββ$ decay.

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