Abstract
The process of turning a proton into a neutron, positron and electron-neutrino in a strong plane-wave electromagnetic field is studied. This process is forbidden in vacuum and is seen to feature an exponential suppression factor which is non-perturbative in the field amplitude. The suppression is alleviated when the proton experiences a field strength of about ten times the Schwinger critical field in its rest frame or larger. Around this threshold the lifetime of the proton, in its rest frame, is comparable to the conventional neutron decay lifetime. As the field strength is increased, the proton lifetime becomes increasingly short. We investigate possible scenarios where this process may be observed in the laboratory using an ultra-intense laser and a high-energy proton beam with the conclusion, however, that it would be very challenging to observe this effect in the near future.
Highlights
In the Standard Model, the proton is regarded as a stable particle and experimentally it is shown that the lifetime is at least on the order of 1033 years [1]
Electromagnetic field strengths on the order of the Schwinger critical field given by Ecr = m2ec3/eh ≈ 1.3 × 1016 V/cm, where me is the electron mass, c the speed of light, e > 0 the elementary charge andh Planck constant, sets the scale at which nonlinear quantum effects in electrodynamics become important [2, 3]
In Fig. (1) we show a plot of the proton lifetime τP =−1 in the rest frame of the proton
Summary
In the Standard Model, the proton is regarded as a stable particle and experimentally it is shown that the lifetime is at least on the order of 1033 years [1]. [2], who mainly studied modification of processes already allowed in vacuum, makes a semi-quantitative estimate of the probability per unit time of proton transmutation by means of analytical continuation in the case of a constant crossed field For studies about how decay processes due to the weak interaction are influenced by a strong plane wave we refer to the reviews Refs. We may use the V-A point interaction because the energy-momentum transfer in the process is on the order of the difference between the neutron and the proton mass, which is much smaller than the masses of the intermediate W boson.
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