Baryon-number-violating nucleon decays into a dark photon particle
Abstract
Baryon-number-violating (BNV) nucleon decays into a light new particle represent an exciting yet experimentally unexplored frontier. In this work, we systematically study nucleon decays into a dark photon using a low-energy effective field theory extended with a dark photon X, referred to as XLEFT. We first construct a complete set of leading-order BNV XLEFT operators and then perform a systematic matching onto the chiral perturbation theory for operators involving light u,d,s quarks that dominantly contribute to nucleon decays. Within the chiral framework, we derive general expressions for the decay widths of both two- and three-body nucleon decays and analyze the momentum distributions in the latter. Finally, we thoroughly reinterpret the existing experimental data on conventional two-body modes (into a lepton and a meson) to set lower bounds on partial lifetimes of the corresponding three-body modes involving an additional dark photon. These bounds allow us to further set stringent constraints on the XLEFT operators and other correlated decay modes. Our results provide a toolkit for future experimental and theoretical studies of these exotic nucleon decays.
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BibTeX
@misc{liang2026baryonnumberviolating,
title = {{Baryon-number-violating nucleon decays into a dark photon particle}},
author = {Jin-Han Liang and Yi Liao and Xiao-Dong Ma and Xiang Zhao},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.22452},
eprint = {2607.22452},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.22452},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Baryon-number-violating nucleon decays into a dark photon particle
AU - Jin-Han Liang
AU - Yi Liao
AU - Xiao-Dong Ma
AU - Xiang Zhao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/26
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.22452
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.22452
AB - Baryon-number-violating (BNV) nucleon decays into a light new particle represent an exciting yet experimentally unexplored frontier. In this work, we systematically study nucleon decays into a dark photon using a low-energy effective field theory extended with a dark photon X, referred to as XLEFT. We first construct a complete set of leading-order BNV XLEFT operators and then perform a systematic matching onto the chiral perturbation theory for operators involving light u,d,s quarks that dominantly contribute to nucleon decays. Within the chiral framework, we derive general expressions for the decay widths of both two- and three-body nucleon decays and analyze the momentum distributions in the latter. Finally, we thoroughly reinterpret the existing experimental data on conventional two-body modes (into a lepton and a meson) to set lower bounds on partial lifetimes of the corresponding three-body modes involving an additional dark photon. These bounds allow us to further set stringent constraints on the XLEFT operators and other correlated decay modes. Our results provide a toolkit for future experimental and theoretical studies of these exotic nucleon decays.
ER -