English

Parity of the neutron consistent with neutron-antineutron oscillations

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2021-04-07 v3 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

In the analysis of neutron-antineutron oscillations, it has been recently argued in the literature that the use of the iγ0i\gamma^{0} parity np(t,x)=iγ0n(t,x)n^{p}(t,-\vec{x})=i\gamma^{0}n(t,-\vec{x}) which is consistent with the Majorana condition is mandatory and that the ordinary parity transformation of the neutron field np(t,x)=γ0n(t,x)n^{p}(t,-\vec{x}) = \gamma^{0}n(t,-\vec{x}) has a difficulty. We show that a careful treatment of the ordinary parity transformation of the neutron works in the analysis of neutron-antineutron oscillations. Technically, the CP symmetry in the mass diagonalization procedure is important and the two parity transformations, iγ0i\gamma^{0} parity and γ0\gamma^{0} parity, are compensated for by the Pauli-G\"ursey transformation. Our analysis shows that either choice of the parity gives the correct results of neutron-antineutron oscillations if carefully treated.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.12843,
  title  = {Parity of the neutron consistent with neutron-antineutron oscillations},
  author = {Kazuo Fujikawa and Anca Tureanu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.12843},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

19 pages. Some modifications in Appendix B were made. This version is going to be published in Phys. Rev. D