Back, A R, Clark, K J, Falk, E, Hartnell, J, Lefeuvre, G M, Leming, E J, Mlejnek, M, Mottram, M J, Nirkko, M, Peeters, S J M, Rigan, M, Sinclair, J R, Stringer, M I, Waterfield, J, White, R F, The SNO+ Collaboration, and others, (2019) Search for invisible modes of nucleon decay in water with the SNO+ detector. Physical Review D, 99 (3). 032008 1-13. ISSN 2470-0010

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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 deexcite, often emitting detectable gamma rays. A search for such gamma rays yields limits of 2.5×1029  y at 90% Bayesian credibility level (with a prior uniform in rate) for the partial lifetime of the neutron, and 3.6×1029  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 1.3×1028  y for nn, 2.6×1028  y for pn and 4.7×1028  y for pp, an improvement over existing limits by close to 3 orders of magnitude for the latter two.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Research Centres and Groups:	Experimental Particle Physics Research Group
Subjects:	Q Science Q Science > QC Physics
Depositing User:	Alice Jackson
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2019 13:06
Last Modified:	27 Feb 2019 14:11
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/81456

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