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Creators/Authors contains: "Dekens, Wouter"

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  1. A<sc>bstract</sc> We study neutrinoless double-beta decay in extensions of the Standard Model that includenright-handed neutrino singlets, with massesmsbelow the GeV scale. Generalizing recently developed matching methods, we determine themsdependence of the short-rangenn→ppcouplings that appear to leading order in the chiral effective field theory description of neutrinoless double beta decay. We focus on two scenarios, corresponding to the minimalνSM and left-right symmetric models. We illustrate the impact of our new results in the case of theνSM, showing a significant impact on the neutrinoless double-beta decay half-life whenmsis in the 200–800 MeV range. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2026
  2. Free, publicly-accessible full text available November 1, 2025
  3. The accuracy of V u d determinations from superallowed β decays critically hinges on control over radiative corrections. Recently, substantial progress has been made on the single-nucleon, universal corrections, while nucleus-dependent effects, typically parametrized by a quantity δ NS , are much less well constrained. Here, we lay out a program to evaluate this correction from effective field theory (EFT), highlighting the dominant terms as predicted by the EFT power counting. Moreover, we compare the results to a dispersive representation of δ NS and show that the expected momentum scaling applies even in the case of low-lying intermediate states. Our EFT framework paves the way toward calculations of δ NS and thereby addresses the dominant uncertainty in V u d . Published by the American Physical Society2024 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available November 1, 2025
  4. null (Ed.)
    A bstract We present a method to determine the leading-order (LO) contact term contributing to the nn → ppe − e − amplitude through the exchange of light Majorana neutrinos. Our approach is based on the representation of the amplitude as the momentum integral of a known kernel (proportional to the neutrino propagator) times the generalized forward Compton scattering amplitude n ( p 1 ) n ( p 2 ) W + ( k ) → $$ p\left({p}_1^{\prime}\right)p\left({p}_2^{\prime}\right){W}^{-}(k) $$ p p 1 ′ p p 2 ′ W − k , in analogy to the Cottingham formula for the electromagnetic contribution to hadron masses. We construct model-independent representations of the integrand in the low- and high-momentum regions, through chiral EFT and the operator product expansion, respectively. We then construct a model for the full amplitude by interpolating between these two regions, using appropriate nucleon factors for the weak currents and information on nucleon-nucleon ( NN ) scattering in the 1 S 0 channel away from threshold. By matching the amplitude obtained in this way to the LO chiral EFT amplitude we obtain the relevant LO contact term and discuss various sources of uncertainty. We validate the approach by computing the analog I = 2 NN contact term and by reproducing, within uncertainties, the charge-independence-breaking contribution to the 1 S 0 NN scattering lengths. While our analysis is performed in the $$ \overline{\mathrm{MS}} $$ MS ¯ scheme, we express our final result in terms of the scheme-independent renormalized amplitude $$ {\mathcal{A}}_{\nu}\left(\left|\mathbf{p}\right|,\left|\mathbf{p}^{\prime}\right|\right) $$ A ν p p ′ at a set of kinematic points near threshold. We illustrate for two cutoff schemes how, using our synthetic data for $$ {\mathcal{A}}_{\nu } $$ A ν , one can determine the contact-term contribution in any regularization scheme, in particular the ones employed in nuclear-structure calculations for isotopes of experimental interest. 
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  5. A bstract We perform a model-independent analysis of the magnetic and electric dipole moments of the muon and electron. We give expressions for the dipole moments in terms of operator coefficients of the low-energy effective field theory (LEFT) and the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT). We use one-loop renormalization group improved perturbation theory, including the one-loop matching from SMEFT onto LEFT, and one-loop lepton matrix elements of the effective-theory operators. Semileptonic four-fermion operators involving light quarks give sizable non-perturbative contributions to the dipole moments, which are included in our analysis. We find that only a very limited set of the SMEFT operators is able to generate the current deviation of the magnetic moment of the muon from its Standard Model expectation. 
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  6. null (Ed.)