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THE ORTHOPOSITRONIUM DECAY PUZZLE AND PRIMORDIAL NUCLEOSYNTHESIS

R. Escribano, E. Masso, R. Toldra

hep-pharXiv:hep-ph/9505443

Abstract

The discrepancy between the experimental decay rate of orthopositronium (o-Ps) and the QED theoretical prediction can be solved by invoking decays of o-Ps into exotic particles with branching ratios of the order of 10-3. We show that considerations based on primordial nucleosynthesis and effective Lagrangians place a very stringent upper bound: B = Gamma(o-Ps -> ``exotic'' + ...)/Gamma(o-Ps) <= 2 x 10-15, ruling out the exotic decay solution to the puzzle.

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