Nature of neutrinos in the light of present and future experiments

Abstract

Two general models with hierarchical and almost degenerate neutrino masses, which are able to explain the solar and atmospheric anomalies are investigated. We show how neutrinoless double beta decay experiments discern Dirac and Majorana natures of neutrinos. The strongest result is, that almost degenerate neutrinos with masses above 0.22 eV combined with the SMA MSW must be Dirac particles. In the general case, the same bound is true for specific parity assignments. In the near future (GENIUS experiment), one of the hierarchical schemes, and the VO mechanism for almost degenerate neutrinos and specific mixing matrix elements and parity assignments will be tested.