Baryon Destruction by Asymmetric Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper explores how asymmetric dark matter with antibaryon number can cause induced nucleon decay, offering new detection methods and implications for stellar systems, linking dark matter properties to baryon number violation.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of induced nucleon decay caused by antibaryonic dark matter and proposes novel detection strategies through nucleon decay experiments and collider searches.

Findings

Induced nucleon decay could mimic proton decay signals in experiments.

Dark matter interactions may have observable effects on stellar systems.

Proposes collider signatures for weak-scale dark matter-induced baryon violation.

Abstract

We investigate new and unusual signals that arise in theories where dark matter is asymmetric and carries a net antibaryon number, as may occur when the dark matter abundance is linked to the baryon abundance. Antibaryonic dark matter can cause {\it induced nucleon decay} by annihilating visible baryons through inelastic scattering. These processes lead to an effective nucleon lifetime of 10^{29}-10^{32} years in terrestrial nucleon decay experiments, if baryon number transfer between visible and dark sectors arises through new physics at the weak scale. The possibility of induced nucleon decay motivates a novel approach for direct detection of cosmic dark matter in nucleon decay experiments. Monojet searches (and related signatures) at hadron colliders also provide a complementary probe of weak-scale dark-matter--induced baryon number violation. Finally, we discuss the effects of baryon-destroying dark matter on stellar systems and show that it can be consistent with existing observations.