Point-Particle Catalysis

Abstract

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We use the point-particle effective field theory (PPEFT) framework to describe particle-conversion mediated by a flavor-changing coupling to a point-particle. We do this for a toy model of two non-relativistic scalars coupled to the same point-particle, on which there is a flavor-violating coupling. It is found that the point-particle couplings all must be renormalized with respect to a radial cut-off near the origin, and it is an invariant of the flow of the flavor-changing coupling that is directly related to particle-changing cross-sections. At the same time, we find an interesting dependence of those cross-sections on the ratio kout/kin of the outgoing and incoming momenta, which can lead to a 1/kin enhancement in certain regimes. We further connect this model to the case of a single-particle non-self-adjoint (absorptive) PPEFT, as well as to a PPEFT of a single particle coupled to a two-state nucleus. These results could be relevant for future calculations of any more complicated reactions, such as nucleus-induced electron-muon conversions, monopole catalysis of baryon number violation, as well as nuclear transfer reactions.

Keywords

• flavor violation
• effective field theories
• catalysis
• high energy physics - theory
• nuclear theory