Abstract
Proton decay, and the decay of nucleons in general, constitutes one of the most sensitive probes of high-scale physics beyond the Standard Model. Most of the existing nucleon decay searches have focused primarily on two-body decay channels, motivated by Grand Unified Theories and supersymmetry. However, many higher-dimensional operators violating baryon number by one unit, $\Delta B = 1$, induce multi-body nucleon decay channels, which have been only weakly constrained thus far. While direct searches for all such possible channels are desirable, they are highly impractical. In light of this, we argue that inclusive nucleon decay searches, $N \rightarrow X +$anything (where $X$ is a light Standard Model particle with an unknown energy distribution), are particularly valuable, as are model-independent and invisible nucleon decay searches such as $n \rightarrow$ invisible. We comment on complementarity and opportunities for such searches in the current as well as upcoming large-scale experiments Super-Kamiokande, Hyper-Kamiokande, JUNO, and DUNE. Similar arguments apply to $\Delta B >1$ processes, which kinematically allow for even more involved final states and are essentially unexplored experimentally.
Highlights
Baryon number B and lepton number L are seemingly accidentally conserved in the Standard Model (SM), which makes searches for their violation extremely important
Baryon number violation is strongly motivated from many distinct theoretical considerations, including grand unified theories (GUTs), supersymmetry, and baryogenesis
Probing proton decay and other baryon number-violating processes is of fundamental importance in order to learn about physics beyond the SM
Summary
Baryon number B and lepton number L are seemingly accidentally conserved in the Standard Model (SM), which makes searches for their violation extremely important. We highlight the importance of inclusive nucleon decay searches These searches are not as sensitive as exclusive ones looking at a particular channel, they allow one to cover very broad parameter space in a model-independent manner and are practically far more feasible. This approach is fruitful to revisit in view of the upcoming large-scale experiments.
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