Energy density functional study of nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless ββ decay

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Dec 17;105(25):252503. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.252503. Epub 2010 Dec 15.

Abstract

We present an extensive study of nuclear matrix elements (NME) for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of the nuclei 48Ca, 76Ge, 82Se, 96Zr, 100Mo, 116Cd, 124Sn, 128Te, 130Te, 136Xe, and 150Nd based on state-of-the-art energy density functional methods using the Gogny D1S functional. Beyond-mean-field effects are included within the generating coordinate method with particle number and angular momentum projection for both initial and final ground states. We obtain a rather constant value for the NMEs around 4.7 with the exception of 48Ca and 150Nd, where smaller values are found. We analyze the role of deformation and pairing in the evaluation of the NME and present detailed results for the decay of 150Nd.