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Title: Testing Dark Decays of Baryons in Neutron Stars

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States). Dept. of Physics
  2. Inst. Max von Laue Paul Langevin, Grenoble (France)

The observation of neutron stars with masses greater than one solar mass places severe demands on any exotic neutron decay mode that could explain the discrepancy between beam and bottle measurements of the neutron lifetime. If the neutron can decay to a stable, feebly interacting dark fermion, the maximum possible mass of a neutron star is 0.7M , while all well-measured neutron star masses exceed one M. The existence of 2M neutron stars further indicates that any explanation beyond the standard model for the neutron lifetime puzzle requires dark matter to be part of a multiparticle dark sector with highly constrained interactions. Beyond the neutron lifetime puzzle, our results indicate that neutron stars provide unique and useful probes of GeV-scale dark sectors coupled to the standard model via baryon-number-violating interactions

Research Organization:
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0017840; PHY-1506416; PHY- 1714042
OSTI ID:
1463059
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1498967
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 6; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 45 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Neutron disappearance inside the nucleus journal January 2019
n − n ¯ oscillations and the neutron lifetime journal January 2019
Constraints on the Dark Matter Interpretation n → χ + e + e − of the Neutron Decay Anomaly with the PERKEO II Experiment journal June 2019
Neutron Star Stability in Light of the Neutron Decay Anomaly journal August 2019
Neutron stars exclude light dark baryons text January 2018
Exotic decay channels are not the cause of the neutron lifetime anomaly text January 2018
Annihilation signatures of neutron dark decay models in neutron oscillation and proton decay searches text January 2019

Figures / Tables (7)


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