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Probings through proton decay and oscillations

1981; Elsevier BV; Volume: 185; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0550-3213(81)90329-1

1873-1562

Jogesh C. Pati, Abdus Salam, J. Strathdee,

Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions

Violation of baryon, lepton and in general fermion number is central to the hypothesis of quark-lepton unification in a gauge context. Three of its characteristic signatures are proton decay, n-n oscillation and neutrinole double β decay. In 1974 and 1975 it was shown that within maximal gauging the proton may decay via four alternative modes (i.e. proton → one or three lepton or antileptons) satisfying ΔF = −2, 0, −4 and −6, some of which may coexist; the deuteron may decay into pions and neutrinoless double β decay occur in the context of spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking. It is now observed that n-n oscillations (which are related to deuteron decays into pions) can coexist with proton decay especially of ΔF = −4 variety (p→e+π0) and both these processes may possess measurable strength so as to be amenable to forthcoming searches. We exhibit alternative routes for spontaneous breakdown of the maximal one-family symmetry SU(16) and show that the coexistence of alternative proton decay modes (even with n-n oscillations) does not pose any conflict with cosmological generation of baryon excess. Spontaneous rather than explicit violation of B, L and F plays an essential role in the realization of these features.