Abstract
The observation of neutron stars with masses greater than one solar mass places severe demands on any exotic neutron decay mode that could explain the discrepancy between beam and bottle measurements of the neutron lifetime. If the neutron can decay to a stable, feebly interacting dark fermion, the maximum possible mass of a neutron star is 0.7M_{⊙}, while all well-measured neutron star masses exceed one M_{⊙}. The existence of 2M_{⊙} neutron stars further indicates that any explanation beyond the standard model for the neutron lifetime puzzle requires dark matter to be part of a multiparticle dark sector with highly constrained interactions. Beyond the neutron lifetime puzzle, our results indicate that neutron stars provide unique and useful probes of GeV-scale dark sectors coupled to the standard model via baryon-number-violating interactions.
Highlights
The neutron lifetime anomaly, the discrepancy in the beam [1,2] vs bottle [3,4,5,6,7,8,9] measurements of the lifetime of the neutron, is a long-standing puzzle [10,11]
The existence of 2M⊙ neutron stars further indicates that any explanation beyond the standard model for the neutron lifetime puzzle requires dark matter to be part of a multiparticle dark sector with highly constrained interactions
Beyond the neutron lifetime puzzle, our results indicate that neutron stars provide unique and useful probes of GeV-scale dark sectors coupled to the standard model via baryon-number-violating interactions
Summary
The observation of neutron stars with masses greater than one solar mass places severe demands on any exotic neutron decay mode that could explain the discrepancy between beam and bottle measurements of the neutron lifetime. In a recent Letter, Fornal and Grinstein [13] made the intriguing suggestion that new decay channels of the neutron n, in particular, n → χ þ γ; n → χ þ eþe−; n → χ þ φ; ð1Þ where χ is a dark matter fermion, φ is a dark matter boson, and γ is a photon, could explain the shorter lifetime in the bottle experiments. The amplitude for these processes must be sufficiently large to allow a rate of Γ ∼ 10−5 s−1 to explain the bottle-beam anomaly. They are in striking agreement with the equation of state constraints deduced by LIGO from the
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