Questions tagged [proton-decay]

Proton decay is a hypothetical form of radioactive decay in which the proton decays into lighter subatomic particles. There is currently no experimental evidence that proton decay.

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What is the half-life of deuterium if protons decay?

If we where to assume that protons decay and we know the half-life of protons, would it be possible to determine the half-life of deuterium? If $^{1}$H (a single proton) has a half-life of, say, $10^{...
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$\beta^{+}$ and $\beta^{-}$ decay processes

We know that electron cannot exist inside the nucleus for various reasons like its energy, angular momentum violation and etc. But these $\beta^{+}$ and $\beta^{-}$ processes occurs inside the nuclei ...
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Neutronization process

How can I find the neutronization density for cold hydrogen plasma? Does it happen within the fusion process of protons and electrons which yields neutrons and neutrino?
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How can randomness occur in the case of radioactive decay ? Isn't there supposed to be a rule for everything that's driven by a non conscious mind? [duplicate]

I'm not trying to be unscientific here but i cannot wrap this around my head that scientifically anything can work randomly except a conscious mind which is capable of making a random decision. how ...
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What is the half-life of isotopes that decay via electron capture, if they are stripped of their electrons?

If an isotope that undergoes decay via electron capture, like 7Be, loses ONE electron, how will its radioactive half life change? What about 2 electrons? And so on and so forth for heavier elements? ...
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Anomalous baryon current in the Standard Model (SM) and the stability of free protons within the confines of the SM

In the Standard Model, the baryon number is not exactly conserved due to anomaly but the decay rate is extraordinarily small at ordinary temperatures. Does this make free protons unstable in the ...
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Is all transformation of quarks and neutron happen for $\beta^+$ decay?

In the video, the person had said "when proton comes in" they form neutron, positron and neutrino. I was thinking what he meant by "comes in". Was he talking about any kind of ...
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Why does the product nucleus lose an electron during beta positive decay process?

The question describes the beta positive decay for Nitrogen-13 into Carbon-13. After reading the explanation for the answer, it says that carbon ion will lose an electron in the decay process; ...
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By which interaction will proton decay? [duplicate]

I learned that proton takes at least $10^{34}$ years to decay. If it will decay one day, will it decay via weak interaction or some other interaction?
Dom Tesilbirth Shira's user avatar
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Has there been an experiment with entangled particles to observe effect on decay time when one is at relativistic speed? [closed]

Has there been an experiment with entangled particles, two of the same, for example two neutrons, where one is left mostly at rest and the other accelerated to relativistic speed to observe if any ...
Throwaway1209's user avatar
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Can extreme acceleration (or space expansion) disintegrate a proton?

I have read this question: It worked in a similar way to dark energy but was so strong it would easily tear atoms apart Attractive higgs force and inflation And this one: Within mainstream physics ...
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Can proton disintegrate into fundamental particles on its own when its speed approaches that of light?

In the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) the particles move close to the speed of light. The LHC accelerates beams of particles, usually protons, around and around a 17-mile ring until they reach 99....
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Decay of proton to neutron [closed]

Decay of proton to neutron is-- Possible only inside nucleus 2)Not possible Always possible as it is associated with Beta+ decay I thought that mass should be conserved here, but we know that ...
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Does the lack of evidence for proton decay really rule out the basic grand unification theories?

Grand unification theories (GUT), such as $SU(5)$/$SO(10)$/SUSY variants, suggest proton decay. The lack of observational evidence for proton decay is supposed to rule out basic GUTs, at least for the ...
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Proton decays in Pati-Salam model or Georgi-Glashow model

This Pati-Salam model doesn't predict gauge mediated proton decay, according to Wikipedia. However the Georgi-Glashow model predict gauge mediated proton decay, according to Wikipedia. I thought the ...
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Mistake in equation 5.4 for quantum gravity baryon decay and fermion case

In the paper https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.cmp/1103922050, the equation 5.4 seems to be lacking a minus: $$\left(\dfrac{m_B}{m_P}\right)^8\dfrac{1}{m_B}\sim 10^{122}yrs$$ seems to be OK only if $n=-...
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Are there non-hadronic jets?

Hello I am new into jetphysics and I read here that 'Hadronic jets are amongst the most striking phenomena in high-energy physics'. My small understanding of jets is that they are defined by the ...
partizanos's user avatar
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Adjusting the rate of proton decay in the standard $\rm SU(5)$ grand unified theory

The proton decay rate in the standard $SU(5)$ grand unified theory is given by $$ \Gamma \sim \left(\frac{g^2}{M_x^2}\right)^2 m_p^5 =\frac{g^4}{M_x^4}m_p^5 $$ Naively we could push up the bound for ...
ann marie cœur's user avatar
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How can we split a proton? [closed]

I have heard the following statements: Quarks always exist in a group of 2 or 3, and can not stand alone. Protons are made up of 2 up quarks, and 1 down quark. Quantum mechanics allows us to entangle ...
Shaurya Sharma's user avatar
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Can protons and neutrons be completely converted into Leptons?

In beta decay, a neutron releases an electron and turns into a proton. The inverse happens, though usually not naturally, in positron emission, where a proton emits a positron and becomes a neutron. ...
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How does an up quark decay into products more massive than itself?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_quark the up quark can decay into a down quark plus a positron plus an electron neutrino. The problem is that the mass of the by-products is greater than ...
Derek Seabrooke's user avatar
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Proton decay through a $(3,1)^{-1/3}$ complex scalar

Suppose we add to the Yukawa sector of the SM a complex scalar $T^\alpha(3,1)^{-1/3}$, where $\alpha=1,2,3$ is a $SU(3)_C$ index and the charges assignment means that it transforms as a triplet under $...
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Converting width in $\rm GeV$ to lifetime in years

I am trying to reproduce the results of this paper1. In particular Eqs. (25) and (26). I would like to convert the proton decay width (given in units of $\rm GeV$) to a lifetime in years. The formula ...
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How to derive the lifetime of proton $p$ in $SU(5)$ theory?

In particular in $SU(3)\times{}SU(2)\times{}U(1)$ theory the proton is stable. But in $SU(5)$ it is not. What makes the difference and how do you calculate it? I am hoping for an overview to give me ...
Ponder Stibbons's user avatar
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Proton decay - Kamiokande experiment

The Kamiokande experiments measure proton decay using water, i.e. probing the proton in an H-atom. The electron in the H-atom has a nonzero probability at the proton position. It is well known that ...
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Stability/decay, are they boolean or not, or does QM probabilities overrule this?

This is not a duplicate, I am not asking whether the proton is a stable particle, or why it is. I am asking about the definition of stability/decay whether it is boolean or not. I have read this ...
Árpád Szendrei's user avatar
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If protons are the only stable baryons, why do they decay into neutrons in positron emission?

Surely I must have a misconception?
physicsgrind's user avatar
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The half-life of carbon-12

Let us denote the half-life of the proton by $Y_p$. (There is, of course, no experimental evidence that $Y_p<\infty$, but there are theories that assert it, so this is really a question about those ...
Martin Kochanski's user avatar
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Why does the conclusion that protons are monopoles has led us to believe that they specifically may have a half-life? [closed]

from Zeldovich, Ya. B.; Khlopov, M. Yu. (1978). "On the concentration of relic monopoles in the universe": "The majority of particles appearing in any quantum field theory are unstable, and they ...
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Why is a delta resonance decay not a radioactive decay

A delta resonance decays as given in http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Particles/delta.html . I wonder, why is it not a radioactive decay? In principle, most/all decays should be radioactive ...
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Why does a scintillator need to be fast decaying?

I have two scintillators, say, one with a decay time of 1 ns vs. one with 100 ns. All other parameters like light yield, size of crystal, electronics used, source emission rate, are the same for both. ...
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Scintillator decay time=1000 nsec,does that mean dead time is really high?

What I'm really confused about is, say my scintillator is really slow, and has a decay time of about 1000 nsec. Does that mean, if one neutron is being read by the electronics, for that particular ...
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Runaway Monopole Catalyzed Baryon Decay

I am a layman in the subject, but I have recently learned that magnetic monopoles could be used to induce baryon decay (Callan-Rubakov mechanism), according to some GUTs. I have also learned that ...
AskerOfQuestions's user avatar
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1 answer
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Why should proton decay into positron rather than antimuon?

Grand unification theories, such as $SU(5)$/$SO(10)$/SUSY variants, suggest proton decay. The lack of observational evidence for proton decay rules out simple GUTs. But wait a minute! The GUT's ...
MadMax's user avatar
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What is the status of SUSY GUTs in 2018?

Grand unification theories (GUTs) generically predict proton decay, and many of them have been under pressure for decades as experiments have failed to see it. I don't think there have been recent ...
knzhou's user avatar
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SUSY and proton decay

If proton decays are NOT observed and we manage to push the lower bound to its lifetime at about 10³⁶ or 10³⁷ years...Can we prove SUSY is wrong or can we always build SUSY models for any proton ...
riemannium's user avatar
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Spontaneous decay of mass?

Do all masses, small (quantum particles) or large (classical, stars) spontaneously (without an external cause) decay in time sooner or later?
user192263's user avatar
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Why is the proton the only stable hadron?

The title pretty much explains the question, but I've always thought that it'd be a neutron because of its 0 charge.
Yusuf Abukar's user avatar
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Mean life of radioactive substance

While I was reading up about mean life I came across a common definition. It is the average time taken by an arbitrary radioactive nucleus to undergo decay (since different particles may take ...
Adithya Eshwarla's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
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Proton's half life (Energy-dependent)

Proton's half life has a lower estimated bound in 10^33 years aprox. This is due to the enormous mass of the X boson, predicted by some GUTs. So my question is: if the free proton is in a high energy ...
Gerard Villarroya's user avatar
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Confusion in proton decay

I read that a proton cannot decay because it is the least massive baryon. However, in positron emission, the proton converts to a neutron a releases a positron. Is that considered a proton decay?
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Is proton decay considered in neutron star models (and LHC)?

Although it is definitely not simple, there are many reasons to consider that baryon number can be violated, for example: during baryogenesis (just after Big Bang) there was created more matter than ...
Jarek Duda's user avatar
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How to make Energy from radioactive material

I have seen where Tritium hitting phosphorus emits light, and a solar cell collects it to for a "battery" of a sort, but Are you able to extract (For Example) Americium from smoke detector and use it ...
Bionic Bouncer's user avatar
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Decay of hydrogen nucleus?

Very naive question. Nuclear decay is associated to more complex nuclei and explained through radiation. What about hydrogen and less complex nuclei? Will these nuclei eventually break apart? Or is it ...
Pag992007's user avatar
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3 answers
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Standard Model Proton Decay Rate

The electro-weak force is known to contain a chiral anomaly that breaks $B+L$ conservation. In other words, it allows for the sum of baryons and leptons to change, but still conserves the difference ...
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Missing energy in proton decay

According to wikipedia: some grand unification theories, such as the Georgi–Glashow model, require it. According to such theories, the proton has a half-life of about 1031 to 1036 years and decays ...
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Proton Decay; How long until this becomes a problem and are there ways to overcome it? [closed]

I've long wondered about the future of our species. Taking the long view, I find it very amusing to consider the challenges that humans will face and (hopefully) overcome on our journey to the end of ...
Phillippe Greenough's user avatar
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2 answers
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Proton Decay Modes

May I know the proton decay mode predicted by Theoretical Physics? These are the decay mode I've found: 1: $p^+\rightarrow e^++\pi^0$ 2: $p^+\rightarrow \mu^++\pi^0$
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What is the maximum proton lifetime allowed by the standard model?

Is some amount proton decay necessary in the standard model or is it possible for the proton lifetime to be infinite?
Schroeder's user avatar
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Estimate mass of exchange boson by decay time

I have made a rough estimate that the minimum lifetime $\tau$ of the proton must be $10^{23} \, \mathrm{s}$. From this I would like to estimate the mass of the X boson which would mediate this decay ...
Martin Ueding's user avatar