Neutron oscillation as a source of cosmic ray antinucleons

Abstract

The effects of neutron oscillation on cosmic ray antineutrons and antiprotons are considered in light of available experiments on the cosmic ray antiproton/proton ratio, which lead to a direct lower bound of the mixing time of a free neutron greater than 2500 sec. If the free neutron mixing time is greater than 100,000 sec, as theoretically suggested, the effect gives an antiproton oscillation/proton ratio lower than about 2.0 x 10 to the -7th at low energies. Such an effect, if the free neutron mixing time is about 100,000 sec, would be seen in a low-momentum region at about 500 MeV/c in future experiments.