Search for invisible modes of nucleon decay in water with the SNO+ detector

UNSPECIFIED (2019) Search for invisible modes of nucleon decay in water with the SNO+ detector. Physical Review D, 99 (3): 032008. ISSN 1550-7998

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Abstract

This paper reports results from a search for nucleon decay through 'invisible' modes, where no visible energy is directly deposited during the decay itself, during the initial water phase of SNO+. However, such decays within the oxygen nucleus would produce an excited daughter that would subsequently de-excite, often emitting detectable gamma rays. A search for such gamma rays yields limits of $2.5 \times 10^{29}$ y at 90% Bayesian credibility level (with a prior uniform in rate) for the partial lifetime of the neutron, and $3.6 \times 10^{29}$ y for the partial lifetime of the proton, the latter a 70% improvement on the previous limit from SNO. We also present partial lifetime limits for invisible dinucleon modes of $1.3\times 10^{28}$ y for $nn$, $2.6\times 10^{28}$ y for $pn$ and $4.7\times 10^{28}$ y for $pp$, an improvement over existing limits by close to three orders of magnitude for the latter two.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Physical Review D
Additional Information:
13 pages, 6 figures
Subjects:
?? hep-exphysics.ins-det ??
ID Code:
130471
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
16 Jan 2019 15:40
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
16 Dec 2023 01:28