Supersymmetry and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

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Neutrinoless double beta decay () induced by superparticle exchange is investigated. Such a supersymmetric (SUSY) mechanism of decay arises within SUSY theories with R-parity non-conservation (). We consider the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) with explicit terms in the superpotential (MSSM). The decay rate for the SUSY mechanism of decay is calculated. Numerical values for nuclear matrix elements for the experimentally most interesting isotopes are calculated within pn-QRPA. Constraints on the MSSM parameter space are extracted from current experimental half-life limits. The most stringent limits are derived from data on ⁷⁶Ge. It is shown that these constraints are more stringent than those from other low-energy processes and are competitive to or even more stringent than constraints expected from accelerator searches.