How long does the hydrogen atom live?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential decay of atomic hydrogen via electron capture in models with new particles, providing experimental limits on hydrogen lifetime and implications for neutron-dark baryon mixing.

Contribution

It calculates the radiative decay rate of hydrogen involving photon emission and derives experimental constraints on hydrogen lifetime and neutron-dark baryon mixing angles.

Findings

Hydrogen decay rate is constrained to a lifetime of about 10^{30} seconds or more.

The Borexino spectrum is sensitive to hydrogen decay, enabling experimental limits.

Limits on neutron-dark baryon mixing angle are approximately 10^{-11}.

Abstract

It is possible that the proton is stable while atomic hydrogen is not. This is the case in models with new particles carrying baryon number which are light enough to be stable themselves but heavy enough so that proton decay is kinematically blocked. Models of new physics that explain the neutron lifetime anomaly generically have this feature, allowing for atomic hydrogen to decay through electron capture on a proton. We calculate the radiative hydrogen decay rate involving the emission of a few hundred keV photon, which makes this process detectable in experiment. In particular, we show that the low energy part of the Borexino spectrum is sensitive to radiative hydrogen decay, and turn this into a limit on the hydrogen lifetime of order $10^{30}~\rm s$ or stronger. For models where the neutron mixes with a dark baryon, $\chi$, this limits the mixing angle to roughly $10^{-11}$, restricting the $n\to\chi\gamma$ branching to $10^{-4}$, over a wide range of parameter space.