Neutron disappearance inside the nucleus

Abstract

We consider the possibility that a neutron may disappear inside the nucleus, which will demonstrate the existence of baryon violating $\Delta B=1$ interactions. It has recently been proposed that such a process may have an effect on the free neutron decay life time. We evaluate the widths for $n\to \chi$ and $n\to \chi \gamma$, with $\chi$ being a light dark matter particle emitted by a loosely bound neutron in various light nuclei. We find that, assuming a mass $m_{\chi }$ close to 938 MeV, the obtained width for $n\to \chi$ in ${}^{11}$Be is much larger than the corresponding beta decay width. This suggests a severe limit on the possible decay channel of $n\to \chi \gamma$ for free neutron.

Comments: 3 figures, 1 table. References added.To appear 2018 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6471/aaf55b arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1801.01124, arXiv:1203.3081 by other authors