Energy Spread of the Unstable State and Proton Decay Observation

TL;DR

This paper discusses how the extremely small energy spread of the proton's unstable state leads to very long measurement times, potentially explaining why proton decay has not been observed yet.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical explanation linking the proton's decay properties to the practical challenges in observing it due to quantum energy spread effects.

Findings

Proton decay has an extremely narrow energy resonance.

The Heisenberg relation predicts prohibitively long measurement times.

This may explain the lack of experimental observation of proton decay.

Abstract

Because of the extreme smallness of the energy spread of the unstable state describing the decaying proton, due in its turn to the anomalous smallness of the resonance width expected for the proton decay, the application of the Heisenberg time-energy relation predicts the measurement times for the proton decay observation to be so long as to forbid a "continuous" observation of the decay. This might account for the missing observation of the proton decay.