English

Nucleon decay in the deuteron

Nuclear Theory 2021-08-02 v2

Abstract

We calculate the lifetime of the deuteron from dimension-six quark operators that violate baryon number by one unit. We construct an effective field theory for ΔB=1|\Delta B|=1 interactions that give rise to nucleon and ΔB=1\Delta B=1 deuteron decay in a systematic expansion. We show that up to and including next-to-leading order the deuteron decay rate is given by the sum of the decay rates of the free proton and neutron. The first nuclear correction is expected to contribute at the few-percent level and comes with an undetermined low-energy constant. We discuss its relation to earlier potential-model calculations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.05715,
  title  = {Nucleon decay in the deuteron},
  author = {F. Oosterhof and J. de Vries and R. G. E. Timmermans and U. van Kolck},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.05715},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T02:02:32.329Z