Theory seminar (11am): Chandan Hati: Light New Physics and Exotic Nucleon Decays

Thursday 13 Mar 2025, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Amsterdam

Veltman Centre (Nikhef)

Nucleon decays are predicted by many well-motivated theories, including those based on the unification of forces and supersymmetry. Following an overview of the current status, I will discuss how exotic nucleon decays offer a unique opportunity to broadly probe light new particles beyond the Standard Model with masses below a few GeV, including axion-like particles, dark photons, sterile neutrinos, and scalar dark matter. Conventional searches can misinterpret and even completely miss such new physics. I will discuss a general strategy based on momenta of visible decay final states to probe these processes, offering a rich physics program for existing and upcoming experiments such as Super-Kamiokande, Hyper-Kamiokande, DUNE, and JUNO.