# An upper bound on the total cross-section for electroweak baryon number violation

## TL;DR

This paper establishes an upper limit on the cross-section of electroweak baryon number violation processes, suggesting potential observability at high-energy colliders and cosmic ray facilities, based on tunneling suppression bounds.

## Contribution

It provides a new upper bound on the cross-section for electroweak baryon plus lepton number violating processes using recent tunneling suppression data and estimates of the pre-exponential factor.

## Key findings

- Electroweak baryon violation processes may be observable at the LHC.
- Potential detection at cosmic ray and neutrino observatories is not excluded.
- Higher partial waves could contribute significantly to observable rates.

## Abstract

An upper bound on the total cross-section of s-wave electroweak instanton/sphaleron induced baryon plus lepton number violating processes is presented. It is obtained by exploiting a recently reported lower bound on the corresponding tunneling suppression exponent and by estimating the pre-exponential factor. We find that the present knowledge about electroweak baryon plus lepton number violating processes still allows their eventual observability at the Very Large Hadron Collider, even as pure s-wave scattering. A possibly observable rate at cosmic ray facilities and neutrino telescopes is presently not excluded, but requires a substantial contribution from higher partial waves.