Search for muonic decays of the antiproton at the Fermilab Antiproton Accumulator

TL;DR

This paper reports on a search for antiproton decay modes involving muons at Fermilab, setting new lower limits on their lifetimes relative to specific decay channels, thus testing baryon number violation.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental limits on six antiproton decay modes with muons, improving constraints on baryon number violation models.

Findings

Set lower lifetime limits for six muonic antiproton decay modes.

Established constraints at 90% confidence level on decay channels involving muons.

Enhanced understanding of baryon number conservation through experimental bounds.

Abstract

A search for antiproton decay has been made at the Fermilab Antiproton Accumulator. Limits are placed on six antiproton decay modes which contain a final-state muon. At the 90% C.L. we find that tau/B(mu gamma) > 5.0 x 10^4 yr, tau/B(mu pi0) > 4.8 x 10^4 yr, tau/B(mu eta) > 7.9 x 10^3 yr, tau/B(mu gamma gamma) > 2.3 x 10^4 yr, tau/B(mu K0S > 4.3 x 10^3 yr, and tau/B(mu K0L) > 6.5 x 10^3 yr.