Monopole-Catalysed Baryon Decay: A Boundary Conformal Field Theory Approach

TL;DR

This paper reexamines monopole-induced baryon decay using boundary conformal field theory, revealing new boundary conditions for multiple fermion flavors that clarify the low-energy behavior of the process.

Contribution

It introduces a boundary conformal field theory framework to analyze monopole-catalyzed baryon decay, identifying novel boundary conditions for multiple fermion flavors.

Findings

Low-energy behavior described by free fermions with conformal boundary conditions

New non-trivial boundary conditions identified for more than two fermion flavors

Enhanced understanding of monopole-mediated baryon number violation

Abstract

Monopole-mediated baryon number violation, the Callan-Rubakov effect, is reexamined using boundary conformal field theory techniques. It is shown that the low-energy behaviour is described simply by free fermions with a conformally invariant boundary condition at the dyon location. When the number of fermion flavours is greater than two, this boundary condition is of a non-trivial type which has not been elucidated previously.