Nucleon Decay into Dark Sector

Abstract

A sub-GeV dark sector fermion X can have baryon number violating interactions induced by high scale physics, leading to nucleon decay into X + meson and neutron -> X + photon. Such processes can mimic standard search modes containing a neutrino, but have different kinematics and may have escaped detection. If a dark force mediated by a light vector Z_d acts on X, depending on parameters, neutron -> X + Z_d can be important. In typical scenarios, Z_d decays into l^+l^-, where l=e, mu, with order unity branching fraction. Nucleon decay searches can potentially uncover new dark states that are otherwise inaccessible, due to their negligible coupling to ordinary matter or cosmological abundance.

Comments: Version accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters; includes a corrected statement. Revtex4, 5 pages, 1 figure