Speaker
Description
Predictions of neutrinoless double-beta decay (0nbb) nuclear matrix elements are challenging, and markedly differ from each other when different many-body methods are used. One possible avenue to improve this current status is to use data from other observables related to 0nbb to test the theoretical calculations, and to use correlations of these observables with 0nbb matrix elements to predict them more confidently. In my talk I will present recent work focused on using nuclear spectroscopy data to test calculations and double-gamma and two-neutrino double-beta decays to predict 0nbb nuclear matrix elements.
In addition, I will discuss recent efforts to improve nuclear shell model 0nbb calculations. First, I will present nuclear matrix elements taking into account the recently acknowledged short-range contribution. Second, I will present a novel way to improve shell-model wavefunctions, by incorporating short-range correlations obtained from high-quality ab initio quantum Monte Carlo calculations.
