Improved limit on charge conservation derived from 71Ga solar neutrino experiments

The reported counting rates of the SAGE and GALLEX solar neutrino detectors have been used to establish an improved limit on the charge-nonconserving decay 71Ga→71Ge+neutrals. The 1σ lower limit on the lifetime against such decays is 3.5x1026 yr. This result can be used to establish a 1σ upper limit on the ratio of the charge-nonconserving to the normal weak interaction decay width of the neutron, Γ(n→p+νe+bar νe)/Γ (n→p+e-+bar νe)≤8x10-27. This result represents by far the most stringent limit yet derived for charge-nonconserving decays involving baryons. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society