Abstract
Exotic particles carrying baryon number and with a mass of the order of the nucleon mass have been proposed for various reasons including baryogenesis, dark matter, mirror worlds, and the neutron lifetime puzzle. We show that the existence of neutron stars with a mass greater than 0.7 M_{⊙} places severe constraints on such particles, requiring them to be heavier than 1.2GeV or to have strongly repulsive self-interactions.
Highlights
Introduction.—Exotic states that carry baryon number and have masses below a few GeV have been theorized in a number of contexts, such as asymmetric dark matter [1,2], mirror worlds [3], neutron-antineutron oscillations [4], or nucleon decays [5]
We currently understand that matter is observationally stable, because the standard model conserves baryon number. This ensures that the proton, the lightest baryon, does not decay
It is interesting to note that, if mχ < mp þ me 1⁄4 938.78 MeV, χ is itself kept stable by the conservation of baryon number and electric charge
Summary
Exotic particles carrying baryon number and with a mass of the order of the nucleon mass have been proposed for various reasons including baryogenesis, dark matter, mirror worlds, and the neutron lifetime puzzle. Introduction.—Exotic states that carry baryon number and have masses below a few GeV have been theorized in a number of contexts, such as asymmetric dark matter [1,2], mirror worlds [3], neutron-antineutron oscillations [4], or nucleon decays [5]. Such states are highly constrained, because they can drastically alter the properties of normal baryonic matter—in particular, if too light, they can potentially render normal matter unstable. The neutron chemical potential can be significantly larger than mn, reaching values of ≃2 GeV in the heaviest neutron
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