Light particles with baryon and lepton numbers

Abstract

We consider light new particles $\chi$ and $\varphi$ that carry baryon and lepton numbers. If these particles are lighter than nucleons they lead to exotic decays such as $p\to {\pi }^{+}\chi$ and $p\to e^{+}\varphi$, not yet fully constrained by dedicated searches. For $\chi$ and $\varphi$ masses in the GeV range proton decays are kinematically forbidden but other decays of the forms baryon $\to$ meson$+\chi$, meson $\to$ baryon$+\bar{\chi }$, and baryon $\to$ anti-lepton$+\varphi$ involving heavy initial hadrons are allowed. This opens up the possibility to search for apparent baryon number violation not just in underground experiments such as Super-Kamiokande and DUNE but also in decays of heavy hadrons in charm and B factories.

Comments: 6 pages, to appear in PLB