Neutron-antineutron oscillations in the deuteron studied with $NN$ and $\bar NN$ interactions based on chiral effective field theory

Abstract

Neutron-antineutron ($n-\bar n$) oscillations in the deuteron are considered. Specifically, the deuteron lifetime is calculated in terms of the free-space $n-\bar n$ oscillation time $\tau_{n-\bar n}$ based on $NN$ and $\bar NN$ interactions derived within chiral effective field theory (EFT). This results in $(2.6\pm 0.1) \times 10^{22}\,\tau^2_{n-\bar n}$ s, which is close to the value obtained by Dover and collaborators more than three decades ago, but disagrees with recent EFT calculations that were performed within the perturbative scheme proposed by Kaplan, Savage, and Wise. Possible reasons for the difference are discussed.