Baryon-Number Nonconservation and the Stability of Strange Matter

Abstract

If baryon-number nonconservation exists in the form of an effective six-quark operator which also changes strangeness by four units, it could have a tremendous impact on the absolute stability of strange quark matter. We show that such an operator is negligible in the supersymmetric standard model with $\lambda_{ijk} u_i^c d_j^c d_k^c$ terms in the superpotential, but may be of importance in models with exotic particle content. From the experimental lower limit of $10^{25}$ years on the stability of nuclei, we find a model-independent lower limit of the order $10^5$ years on the stability of strange matter against such decays.