Abstract
Charge conservation and the Pauli exclusion principle result from fundamental symmetries in the standard model of particle physics, and are typically taken as axiomatic. High-precision tests for small violations of these symmetries could point to new physics. Here we consider three models for violation of these processes, which would produce detectable ionization in the high-purity germanium detectors of the Majorana Demonstrator experiment. Using a 37.5 kg yr exposure, we report a lower limit on the electron mean lifetime, improving the previous best limit for the e→νeνe¯νe decay channel by more than an order of magnitude. We also present searches for two types of violation of the Pauli exclusion principle, setting limits on the probability of an electron to be found in a symmetric quantum state.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1078-1083 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Nature Physics |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2024 |
Funding
This material is based upon work supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under contract/award numbers DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC05-00OR22725, DE-AC05-76RL0130, DE-FG02-97ER41020, DE-FG02-97ER41033, DE-FG02-97ER41041, DE-SC0012612, DE-SC0014445, DE-SC0018060, DE-SC0022339 and LANLEM77/LANLEM78. We acknowledge support from the Particle Astrophysics Program and Nuclear Physics Program of the National Science Foundation through grant numbers MRI-0923142, PHY-1003399, PHY-1102292, PHY-1206314, PHY-1614611, PHY-1812409, PHY-1812356, PHY-2111140 and PHY-2209530. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) programme at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for this work. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the US Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory LDRD Program, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory LDRD Program and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory LDRD Program for this work. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the South Dakota Board of Regents Competitive Research Grant. We acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, funding reference number SAPIN-2017-00023, and from the Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund. We acknowledge support from the 2020/2021 L\u2019Or\u00E9al-UNESCO for Women in Science Programme. This research used resources provided by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a US Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility. We thank our hosts and colleagues at the Sanford Underground Research Facility for their support.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory LDRD Program | |
| Pacific Northwest National Laboratory | |
| Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) programme | |
| Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center | |
| Los Alamos National Laboratory | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | |
| South Dakota Board of Regents | |
| Office of Science | |
| National Science Foundation | PHY-1812409, PHY-1003399, PHY-1206314, PHY-1614611, PHY-1102292, PHY-2209530, PHY-1812356, MRI-0923142, PHY-2111140 |
| Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada | SAPIN-2017-00023 |
| Nuclear Physics | DE-AC05-00OR22725, DE-AC05-76RL0130, DE-SC0012612, DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-FG02-97ER41020, DE-FG02-97ER41033, DE-SC0022339, LANLEM77/LANLEM78, DE-SC0018060, DE-FG02-97ER41041, DE-SC0014445 |