An EFT toolbox for baryon and lepton number violating dinucleon to dilepton decays

TL;DR

This paper develops an effective field theory framework to analyze baryon and lepton number violating dinucleon decays into dileptons, providing new constraints on new physics scales and decay rates based on current experimental data.

Contribution

It constructs a basis of dimension-12 operators in low energy EFT and connects them with SMEFT and chiral perturbation theory, deriving improved bounds on decay rates and new physics scales.

Findings

Current limits push new physics scale above 1-3 TeV.

Stronger bounds on nn→νν' decay rates by 2-3 orders of magnitude.

Improved constraints on various dinucleon to dilepton decay modes.

Abstract

In this paper we systematically consider the baryon ($B$) and lepton ($L$) number violating dinucleon to dilepton decays ($pp\to \ell^+\ell^{\prime+}, pn\to \ell^+\bar\nu^\prime, nn\to \bar\nu\bar\nu^\prime$) with $\Delta B=\Delta L=-2$ in the framework of effective field theory. We start by constructing a basis of dimension-12 (dim-12) operators mediating such processes in the low energy effective field theory (LEFT) below the electroweak scale. Then we consider their standard model effective field theory (SMEFT) completions upwards and their chiral realizations in baryon chiral perturbation theory (B$\chi$PT) downwards. We work to the first nontrivial orders in each effective field theory, collect along the way the matching conditions, and express the decay rates in terms of the Wilson coefficients associated with the dim-12 operators in SMEFT and the low energy constants pertinent to B$\chi$PT. We find the current experimental limits push the associated new physics scale larger than $1-3$ TeV, which is still accessible to the future collider searches. Through weak isospin symmetry, we find the current experimental limits on the partial lifetimes of transitions $pp\to \ell^+\ell^{\prime+}, pn\to \ell^+\bar\nu^\prime$ imply stronger limits on $nn\to\bar\nu\bar\nu^\prime$ than their existing lower bounds, which are improved by $2-3$ orders of magnitude. Furthermore, assuming charged mode transitions are also dominantly generated by the similar dim-12 SMEFT interactions, the experimental limits on $pp\to e^+e^+,e^+\mu^+,\mu^+\mu^+$ lead to stronger limits on $pn\to \ell^+_\alpha\bar\nu_\beta$ with $\alpha,\beta=e,\mu$ than their existing bounds. Conversely, the same assumptions help us to set a lower bound on the lifetime of the experimentally unsearched mode $pp\to e^+\tau^+$ from that of $pn\to e^+\bar\nu_\tau$, i.e., $\Gamma^{-1}_{pp\to e^+\tau^+}\gtrsim 2\times 10^{34}~\rm yrs$.