The neutron decay anomaly, neutron stars and dark matter

Abstract

The discrepancies in different measurements of the lifetime of isolated neutrons could be resolved by considering an extra neutron decay channel into dark matter, with a branching ratio of the order of $O(1$\%). Although the decay channel into a dark fermion $\chi$ plus visible matter has been already experimentally excluded, a dark decay with either a scalar or dark photon remains still a possibility. In particular, a model with a fermion mass $m_{\chi }\approx 1$ GeV and a scalar $m_{\varphi }\approx O(\mathrm{MeV})$ could provide not only the required branching ratio to explain the anomaly but also a good dark matter (DM) candidate with the right thermal abundance today. Although the interaction DM-neutron will affect the formation of neutron stars, the combined effect of the dark matter self-interactions mediated by the light scalar and an effective repulsive interaction with the neutrons induced by the scalar-Higgs coupling would allow heavy enough neutron stars. The combined constraints from neutron lifetime, dark matter abundance, neutron star and Higgs physics, and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, restrict the light scalar mass to the range $2m_e<m_{\varphi }<2m_e+0.0375$ MeV.

Comments: version accepted in PRD; improved discussion on DM abundance; comments on SN cooloing bounds and SIDM contraints added; new Fig. 4 added