Search for Nucleon Decays induced by GUT Magnetic Monopoles with the MACRO Experiment

Abstract

The interaction of a Grand Unification Magnetic Monopole with a nucleon can lead to a barion-number violating process in which the nucleon decays into a lepton and one or more mesons (catalysis of nucleon decay). In this paper we report an experimental study of the effects of a catalysis process in the MACRO detector. Using a dedicated analysis we obtain new magnetic monopole (MM) flux upper limits at the level of $\sim 3\cdot 10^{-16}c{m}^{-2}{s}^{-1}s{r}^{-1}$ for $1.1\cdot 10^{-4}\le |\beta |\le 5\cdot 10^{-3}$, based on the search for catalysis events in the MACRO data. We also analyze the dependence of the MM flux limit on the catalysis cross section.

12 pages, Latex, 10 figures and 2 Tables

References in corpus (1)

• Final results of magnetic monopole searches with the MACRO experiment

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Proton stability in grand unified theories, in strings, and in branes
• Theoretical and Experimental Status of Magnetic Monopoles
• Magnetic monopoles revisited: Models and searches at colliders and in the Cosmos
• Status of Searches for Magnetic Monopoles
• Magnetic Monopole Search at high altitude with the SLIM experiment
• Search for Neutral Q-balls in Super-Kamiokande II
• Search for Direc Magnetic Monopoles in e+e- Collisions with the OPAL Detector at LEP2
• Constraints on Relic Magnetic Black Holes
• Monopoles From an Atmospheric Fixed Target Experiment
• Non-collider searches for stable massive particles
• Search for nuclearites with the SLIM detector
• Searches for Magnetic Monopoles, Nuclearites and Q-balls
• Time correlations of high energy muons in an underground detector
• Time variations in the deep underground muon flux
• Exploring neutrinos from proton decays catalyzed by GUT monopoles in the Sun