Eur. Phys. J. C (2016) 76: 705
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4564-0

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Neutron–antineutron oscillation and baryonic majoron: low scale spontaneous baryon violation

¹ Dipartimento delle Scienze Fisiche e Chimiche, Università dell’Aquila, Via Vetoio, Coppito, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy
² INFN, Laboratori Nazionali Gran Sasso, Assergi, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy

^* e-mail: zurab.berezhiani@aquila.infn.it

Received: 30 May 2016
Accepted: 11 November 2016
Published online: 23 December 2016

Abstract

We discuss the possibility that baryon number B is spontaneously broken at low scales, of the order of MeV or even smaller, inducing the neutron–antineutron oscillation at the experimentally accessible level. An associated Goldstone particle–baryonic majoron can have observable effects in neutron to antineutron transitions in nuclei or dense nuclear matter. By extending baryon number to an anomaly-free symmetry, the baryo-majoron can be identified with the ordinary majoron associated with the spontaneous breaking of lepton number, and it can have interesting implications for neutrinoless decay with the majoron emission. We also discuss the hypothesis that baryon number can be spontaneously broken by QCD itself via the six-quark condensates.