Limits on Lorentz violation from forbidden beta decays

TL;DR

This paper reanalyzes historical forbidden beta decay experiments to establish strong limits on Lorentz violation in the weak interaction, highlighting their significance and potential for future improvements.

Contribution

It provides a novel reinterpretation of 1970s experiments within a modern effective field theory framework to constrain Lorentz violation in beta decays.

Findings

Strong limits on Lorentz violation from historical data

Constraints on Lorentz-violating interactions in the Standard Model extension

Discussion of future experimental prospects

Abstract

Forbidden (slow) beta decays offer new opportunities to test the invariance of the weak interaction under Lorentz transformations. Within a general effective field theory framework we analyze and reinterpret the only two relevant experiments, performed in the 1970s, dedicated to search for a preferred direction in space in first- and second-forbidden beta decays. We show that the results of these experiments put strong and unique limits on Lorentz violation, and in particular on the presence of several interactions in the modern Lorentz-violating Standard Model extension. We discuss prospects to improve on these limits.