Baryon Number Violating Scatterings in Laboratories

TL;DR

This paper challenges previous beliefs by suggesting that baryon number violating processes at energies above 9 TeV could be observable due to multi-sphaleron effects and resonant tunneling, potentially increasing event rates significantly.

Contribution

It introduces the importance of multi-sphaleron processes and resonant tunneling in estimating baryon number violation event rates, revising earlier exponentially suppressed predictions.

Findings

Multi-sphaleron processes enhance event rates.

Resonant tunneling significantly increases the likelihood of baryon violation.

Estimated event rates could be observable in near-future experiments.

Abstract

Earlier estimates have argued that the baryon number violating scattering cross-section in the laboratory is exponentially small so it will never be observed, even for incoming 2-particle energy well above the sphaleron energy of 9 TeV. However, we argue in arXiv:1505.03690 that, due to the periodic nature of the sphaleron potential, the event rate for energies above the sphaleron energy may be high enough to be observed in the near future. That is, there is a discrepancy of about 70 orders of magnitude between the two estimates. Here we argue why and how the multi-sphaleron processes are crucial to the event rate estimate, a very important "resonant tunneling" property that has not been taken into account before. We also summarize the input assumptions and reasoning adopted in our estimate, when compared to the earlier estimates.