We search for the rare decay in a sample of electron-positron collisions at the resonance collected with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB collider. We use the inclusive properties of the accompanying meson in events to suppress background from other decays of the signal candidate and light-quark pair production. We validate the measurement with an auxiliary analysis based on a conventional hadronic reconstruction of the accompanying meson. For background suppression, we exploit distinct signal features using machine learning methods tuned with simulated data. The signal-reconstruction efficiency and background suppression are validated through various control channels. The branching fraction is extracted in a maximum likelihood fit. Our inclusive and hadronic analyses yield consistent results for the branching fraction of and , respectively. Combining the results, we determine the branching fraction of the decay to be , providing the first evidence for this decay at 3.5 standard deviations. The combined result is 2.7 standard deviations above the standard model expectation. Published by the American Physical Society2024
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This content will become publicly available on January 1, 2027
Search for nucleon decay via p→νπ+ and n→νπ0 in 0.484 Mton-year of Super-Kamiokande data
We present the results of searches for nucleon decays via and using a exposure of Super-Kamiokande I-V data covering the entire pure water phase of the experiment. Various improvements on the previous 2014 nucleon decay search [], which used an exposure of , are incorporated. The physics models related to pion production and nuclear interaction are refined with external data, and a more comprehensive set of systematic uncertainties, now including those associated with the atmospheric neutrino flux and pion production channels, is considered. Also, the fiducial volume has been expanded by 21%. No significant indication of a nucleon decay signal is found beyond the expected background. Lower bounds on the nucleon partial lifetimes are determined to be for and for at 90% confidence level.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2411709
- PAR ID:
- 10689866
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- PHYSICAL REVIEW D 113, 012015 (2026)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review D
- Volume:
- 113
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2470-0010
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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