SEMINAR      Thursday 24 May 2005 - h. 15:00  Aula Seminari     M. Hirsch (Valencia U.) Double beta decay - Status and Future Perspectives Abstract     After some basic introduction to neutrinoless double beta decay, current status in theory and experiment is discussed.    Non-observation of neutrinoless beta decay allows to set limits on various proposed extensions of the standard model, the probably most important of which is a limit on the absolute (Majorana) neutrino mass scale.    The sensitiviy of future experiments is then compared to expected rates for double beta decay given current neutrino oscillation data.