Baryon and Lepton Number as Local Gauge Symmetries

TL;DR

This paper explores a model where baryon and lepton numbers are local gauge symmetries, leading to anomaly cancellation, neutrino mass generation, suppressed flavor violation, and stable dark matter, with potential collider signals.

Contribution

It introduces a simple gauge theory with B and L as local symmetries, anomaly cancellation via a new fermion generation, and automatic dark matter stability.

Findings

Anomaly cancellation achieved with a single new fermion generation.

Seesaw mechanism naturally realized for neutrino masses.

Suppressed flavor-changing neutral currents due to gauge symmetries.

Abstract

We investigate a simple theory where Baryon number (B) and Lepton number (L) are local gauge symmetries. In this theory B and L are on the same footing and the anomalies are cancelled by adding a single new fermionic generation. There is an interesting realization of the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses. Furthermore, there is a natural suppression of flavour violation in the quark and leptonic sectors since the gauge symmetries and particle content forbid tree level flavor changing neutral currents involving the quarks or charged leptons. Also one finds that the stability of a dark matter candidate is an automatic consequence of the gauge symmetry. Some constraints and signals at the Large Hadron Collider are briefly discussed.