Chiral Lagrangian for proton decay

We extend the recent chiral model of Claudson, Wise, and Hall to include vector and axial-vector mesons as gauge bosons of an SU(3)/sub L/ x SU(3)/sub R/ chiral symmetry. The resulting baryon-number-violating interaction Lagrangian contains an additional free parameter and modifies significantly the two-body branching ratios of protons. Without some experimental input, it is not possible to predict definite branching ratios even in the minimal SU(5) model of grand unification. Depending on the values of the effective parameters of the chiral Lagrangian, several interesting possibilities for the branching ratios arise, and they are discussed in some detail. We provide, within the framework of the model, general formulas for two-body decays of the proton for an arbitrary grand unified theory including both Higgs- and gauge-boson exchanges. We also discuss how the effective parameters in our chiral model can be related to quark and bag models, and thereby show how various models can be tested for their consistency with the chiral aspects of strong interactions