Thread: Proton Deacy Does it exist?

It seems to be an important piece in GUTs yet it has not been seen yet as of today.

This might be due to the fact that the halflife of this decay is calculated to be above 10^30 years, so thats 10^20times the age of the universe (give or take). So you have to set up an experiment where you are watching more than 10^30 protons and wait for one fo them decay. The other problem is to distinguish between this proton decay and other events caused by diffferent phenomena. I guess there is such an experiemnt under way in the Gran Sasso in Italy but to my knowledge the proton decay has not been spotted yet. This could mean that it does not happen or the halflife is some orders of magnitude higher than predicted.