Dark matter catalyzed baryon destruction
Yohei Ema, Robert McGehee, Maxim Pospelov, Anupam Ray
Abstract
WIMP-type dark matter may have additional interactions that break baryon number, leading to induced nucleon decays which are subject to direct experimental constraints from proton decay experiments. In this work, we analyze the possibility of continuous baryon destruction, deriving strong limits from the dark matter accumulating inside old neutron stars, as such a process leads to excess heat generation. We construct the simplest particle dark matter model that breaks the baryon and lepton numbers separately but conserves <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <a:mi>B</a:mi> <a:mo>−</a:mo> <a:mi>L</a:mi> </a:math> . Virtual exchange by DM particles in this model results in dinucleon decay via <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <c:mi>n</c:mi> <c:mi>n</c:mi> <c:mo stretchy="false">→</c:mo> <c:mi>n</c:mi> <c:mover accent="true"> <c:mi>ν</c:mi> <c:mo stretchy="false">¯</c:mo> </c:mover> </c:math> and <h:math xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <h:mi>n</h:mi> <h:mi>p</h:mi> <h:mo stretchy="false">→</h:mo> <h:mi>n</h:mi> <h:msup> <h:mi>e</h:mi> <h:mo>+</h:mo> </h:msup> </h:math> processes.