Search for nucleon decays induced by GUT magnetic monopoles with the MACRO experiment
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abstract
The interaction of a Grand Unification Magnetic Monopole with a nucleon can lead to a barion-number violating process in which the nucleon decays into a lepton and one or more mesons (catalysis of nucleon decay). In this paper we report an experimental study of the effects of a catalysis process in the MACRO detector. Using a dedicated analysis we obtain new magnetic monopole (MM) flux upper limits at the level of 3 10-16 cm-2 s-1 sr-1 for 1.1 10-4 || 5 10-3, based on the search for catalysis events in the MACRO data. We also analyze the dependence of the MM flux limit on the catalysis cross section.