Massive neutrinos and right-handed weak currents in double beta decay.

The contributions of right-handed weak currents in neutrinoless double beta decay are studied taking explicitly into account the mass corrections to the intermediate neutrino propagator. Due to these corrections the right-handed currents become effective even if all neutrinos are light ([ital m][sub [nu]][gt]10 MeV). Explicit expressions for the neutrino-momentum integrals and the decay half-life are derived. As an example two neutrino-mass scenarios containing the hypothetical 17-keV neutrino are discussed. The experimental half-life of the [sup 76]Ge[r arrow][sup 76]Se decay is used to obtain an upper limit for a new kind of effective right-handed coupling within the two scenarios.

Shell-model and projected mean-field approach to electronic excitations of atomic clusters