Absolute values of neutrino masses:: status and prospects

Compelling evidences in favor of neutrino masses and mixing obtained in the last years in Super-Kamiokande, SNO, KamLAND and other neutrino experiments made the physics of massive and mixed neutrinos a frontier field of research in particle physics and astrophysics. There are many open problems in this new field. In this review we consider the problem of the absolute values of neutrino masses, which apparently is the most difficult one from the experimental point of view. We discuss the present limits and the future prospects of beta-decay neutrino mass measurements and neutrinoless double-beta decay. We consider the important problem of the calculation of nuclear matrix elements of neutrinoless double-beta decay and discuss the possibility to check the results of different model calculations of the nuclear matrix elements through their comparison with the experimental data. We discuss the upper bound of the total mass of neutrinos that was obtained recently from the data of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and other cosmological data and we discuss future prospects of the cosmological measurements of the total mass of neutrinos. We discuss also the possibility to obtain information on neutrino masses from the observation of the ultra high-energy cosmic rays (beyond the GZK cutoff). Finally, we review the main aspects of the physics of core-collapse supernovae, the limits on the absolute values of neutrino masses from the observation of SN1987A neutrinos and the future prospects of supernova neutrino detection. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.