Present and future strategies for neutrinoless double beta decay searches

The renewed interest shown in these days towards neutrinoless double beta decay, a lepton number violating process which can take place only if neutrinos are Majorana particles (ν = ν̄) with a nonvanishing mass, is justified by the fact that the Majorana nature of neutrinos is expected in many theories beyond the Standard Model. We also now know, thanks to the neutrino oscillation experiments, that neutrinos are in fact massive, as expected in these theories and not requested in the Standard Model. Moreover, since neutrino oscillation experiments measure only the absolute value of the difference of the square of the neutrino masses, the discovery of neutrinoless double beta decay would help to disentangle questions that still remain unsolved: what is the absolute mass scale of the neutrinos and which mass hierarchy (normal, inverted or quasi-degenerate) is the correct one? The scope of this paper is not only to review the present results reached in the field by the different groups and technologies worldwide, but also to illustrate and comment on the (near and long-term) future strategies that experimentalists are trying to pursue to reach the needed sensitivity required to explore the inverted hierarchy neutrino mass scale. © Indian Academy of Sciences.