Catalysis of Baryon Decay

Abstract

Recent studies of the interaction between fermions and grand unification monopoles have shown that the cross-sections for monopole-catalysed proton decay reactions such as M + p → M + e⁺ + π⁰ are independent of the unification scale, M_X, in fact of typical strong interaction size.^1,2 Other speakers at this conference have discussed the phenomenological implications of this result, so I will concentrate on trying to explain why it happens. Since fairly subtle field theory phenomena are involved, I will not be able to give an exhaustive discussion in the short time available to me. Instead, I will present a line of argument which, while incomplete, brings out what I believe to be the essential physical mechanisms underlying this rather paradoxical phenomenon. I hope to convince the baffled experimentalist as well as the skeptical theorist that sensible physics, not magic, is responsible for monopole catalysis of baryon decay.