Suppression of proton decay in quantum gravity

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Abstract

The bound on the proton lifetime is one of a small handful of observations that constrains physics not far from the Planck scale. This calls for a calculation of the proton lifetime in quantum gravity. Here, we calculate how quantum fluctuations of the metric impact four-fermion interactions which mediate proton decay. We find that quantum gravity lowers the scaling dimension of the four-fermion interaction, suppressing proton decay and raising the proton lifetime significantly. As a special case, we analyze asymptotically safe quantum gravity, in which we discover that proton-decay-mediating four-fermion interactions are strictly zero.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number138529
JournalPhysics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume850
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

Keywords

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