English

Probing baryon number with missing energy

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-03-31 v2

Abstract

Quark portal interactions qqqNqqqN with a light singlet fermion NN make baryon number testable through missing transverse energy (MET). We find that present LHC data constrain scales up to 10 TeV (MET plus jet), 8 TeV (MET plus top) and 11 TeV (MET plus bjet). With increasing mass, or larger portal couplings, NN becomes less long-lived, and gives clean displaced vertex signatures, which encourage dedicated searches. We also narrow down viable mesogenesis models with color triplet scalars to a mass range y3TeV\sim y \,\cdot 3 \, \text{TeV} (with charm) and y5TeV\sim y \, \cdot 5 \, \text{TeV} (charmless) couplings yy to bb and lighter quarks, a window that can be scrutinized by HL-LHC. Interactions also induce rare decays of type baryon (meson) to meson (baryon) plus invisible, which complement high-pTp_T searches and can prove baryon number violation. We explore charm decays Λc(π,K)+invisible\Lambda_c \to (\pi,K) + \mathrm{invisible}. Their branching ratios are subject to sizable hadronic uncertainties and require high luminosity flavor facilities such as a Tera-Z facility (FCC-ee, CEPC). Branching ratios of top quarks into one or two bb-jets plus NN can reach few×106\times 10^{-6}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.15936,
  title  = {Probing baryon number with missing energy},
  author = {Gudrun Hiller and Antonio Rodríguez-Sánchez and Daniel Wendler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.15936},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

55 pages, 16 figures, v2: MET+top recast corrected and MET+bjet included

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:40:29.418Z