2011/05/31 by Christopher Smith · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Baryon #Baryon number #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Context (archaeology) #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dimension (graph theory) #Fermion #Geography #Lepton #Lepton number #Mathematics #Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model #Nuclear physics #Parity (physics) #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Proton decay #Pure mathematics #R-parity #Superpotential #Supersymmetry #Theoretical physics #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.85.036005
Revised and extended. To appear in Phys. Rev. D
arxiv created 2012/02/06 · openalex publication_date 2012/02/09 · arxiv updated 2013/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The possibility to violate baryon or lepton number without introducing any new flavor structures, beyond those needed to account for the known fermion masses and mixings, is analyzed. With four generations, but only three colors, this minimality requirement is shown to lead to baryon number conservation, up to negligible dimension-18 operators. In a supersymmetric context, this same minimality principle allows only superpotential terms with an even number of flavored superfields, hence effectively enforcing R parity both within the minimal supersymmetric standard model and in a grand unified theory context.