A model of antineutron annihilation in experimental searches for neutron-antineutron transformations

TL;DR

This paper develops a detailed simulation model for antineutron annihilation in neutron-antineutron transformation experiments, crucial for background discrimination in baryon number violation searches.

Contribution

It introduces an improved Monte Carlo simulation framework for antineutron annihilation in carbon-12, aiding experimental searches for neutron-antineutron oscillations.

Findings

Enhanced simulation accuracy for antineutron-carbon annihilation

Preliminary studies on antineutron-argon interactions

Framework supports future experimental analysis

Abstract

Searches for baryon number violation, including searches for proton decay and neutron-antineutron transformation, are expected to play an important role in the evolution of our understanding of beyond Standard Model physics. The neutron-antineutron transformation is a key prediction of certain popular theories of baryogenesis, and the experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and the European Spallation Source plan to search for this process with bound- and free-neutron systems. Accurate simulation of this process in Monte Carlo will be important for the proper reconstruction and separation of these rare events from background. This article presents developments towards accurate simulation of the annihilation process for use in a cold, free neutron beam for neutron-antineutron searches from antineutron-carbon annihilation, as carbon-12 is the target of choice for the European Spallation Source's NNBar Collaboration. Initial efforts are also made in this paper to perform analogous studies for intra-nuclear transformation searches in argon-40 nuclei, although this latter work will be properly addressed in our next publication.