Abstract: Nuclear matrix elements (NME) are a crucial input for the interpretation of neutrinoless double beta decay data. We consider a representative set of recent NME calculations from different methods and investigate the impact on the present bound on the effective Majorana mass m(& beta;& beta;) by performing a combined analysis of the available data as well as on the sensitivity reach of future projects. A crucial role is played by the recently discovered short-range contribution to the NME, induced by light Majorana neutrino masses. Depending on the NME model and the relative sign of the long- and short-range contributions, the current 3 & sigma; bound can change between m(& beta;& beta;)< 40 meV and 600 meV. The sign-uncertainty may either boost the sensitivity of next-generation experiments beyond the region for m(& beta;& beta;) predicted for inverted mass ordering or prevent even advanced setups to reach this region. Furthermore, we study the possibility to distinguish between different NME calculations by assuming a positive signal and by combining measurements from different isotopes. Such a discrimination will be impossible if the relative sign of the long- and short-range contribution remains unknown, but can become feasible if m(& beta;& beta;) & GSIM; 40 meV and if the relative sign is known to be positive. Sensitivities will be dominated by the advanced Ge-76 and Xe-136 setups assumed here, but NME model-discrimination improves if data from a third isotope is added, e.g., from Te-130 or Mo-100.

Abstract: The Scotogenic model is a popular scenario that induces radiative Majorana neutrino masses and includes a weakly-interacting dark matter candidate. We classify all possible ultraviolet extensions of the Scotogenic model in which (i) the dark DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL Z(2) parity emerges at low energies after the spontaneous breaking of a global U(1)(L) lepton number symmetry, and (ii) the low-energy effective theory contains a naturally small lepton number breaking parameter, suppressed by the mass of a heavy mediator integrated out at tree-level. We find 50 such models and discuss two of them in detail to illustrate our setup. We also discuss some general aspects of the phenomenology of the models in our classification, exploring possible lepton flavor violating signals, collider signatures and implications for dark matter. The phenomenological prospects of these scenarios are very rich due to the presence of additional scalar states, including a massless Goldstone boson.

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the model-independent traversable wormholes from baryon acoustic oscillations. Firstly, we place the statistical constraints on the average dark energy equation of state Wav by only using BAO data. Subsequently, two specific wormhole solutions are obtained, i.e, the cases of the constant redshift function and a special choice for the shape function. For the first case, we analyze the traversabilities of the wormhole configuration, and for the second case, we find that one can construct theoretically a traversable wormhole with infinitesimal amounts of average null energy condition violating phantom fluid. Furthermore, we perform the stability analysis for the first case, and find that the stable equilibrium configurations may increase for increasing values of the throat radius of the wormhole in the cases of a positive and a negative surface energy density. It is worth noting that the obtained wormhole solutions are static and spherically symmetrical metric, and that we assume Wav to be a constant between different redshifts when placing constraints, hence, these wormhole solutions can be interpreted as stable and static phantom wormholes configurations at some certain redshift which lies in the range [0.32, 2.34].