Results for “PRE PREONS”

DOE OSTI2015

Superstrings

The quest to find the ultimate building blocks of nature is one of the oldest in all of physics. While we are far from knowing the answer to that question, one intriguing proposed answer is that all matter is composed of tiny “strings.” The known particles are simply different vibrational patterns of these strings. In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln explains this idea, using interesting and accessible examples of real-world vibrations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Proton decay from quark and lepton compositeness

Within a chiral SU(15) gauge theory in which the Standard Model fermions are bound states of massless preons, we show that proton-decay operators are likely induced at the compositeness scale, Λ pre . Our estimate of the limit imposed by searches for proton decays is Λ pre > 10 4 TeV 1/2 $C^{1/4}_{8} m^{1/2}_{Q}$, where C 8 is a rescaled coefficient of an 8-prebaryon operator induced by SU(15) dynamics, and m Q is the mass of a composite vectorlike quark. The latter has a lower limit related to the mass of a composite vectorlike lepton, which in turn is required by LHC searches to be above 1 TeV. For C 8 in the 10 –5 – 1 range, the lower limit on Λ pre varies between 3 × 10 3 TeV and 5 × 10 4 TeV. We point out that exotic proton decay modes, into a π + and a heavy right-handed neutrino, could be observed using the Super-Kamiokande or DUNE detectors.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗