4 ms·

Protons and electrons do not decay according to the Standard Model.

• jacquesm 3y ago
  I'm familiar with the theory but: it's technically an open problem, isn't it? Whether it lives forever or has some average life-span or not. At least, that's what I got from reading about this. It is very well possible that I'm wildly out of date but from memory: there are some subtle problems with the present day theory that could be fixed but they would require for proton and electron decay to be possible. But all that has happened so far is that we've established a (very high) lower bound to how long these particles live, but there is no hard rule that says they can't decay, it's just that if they do (as in: we find experimental proof that they do) then the Standard Model will be ripe for an upgrade. And that in turn might get us one step closer to a UFT.
  • evanb 3y ago
    In the standard model the (proton, electron) is the lightest particle charged under the global (baryon number, lepton number) conservation respectively. So they are truly stable according to the SM. However, there are many good reasons to expect that physics beyond the standard model do not conserve B or L (or B-L, which is what's actually conserved in the SM). In those models one expects proton decays for sure. However, even in those models, electric charge is conserved. Unless there are gauge-variant dynamics at very high energy electric charge will always be conserved and electrons (and positrons), being the lightest electrically charged particles, will be absolutely stable.
  • mensetmanusman 3y ago
    This is like a decay of the gaps argument :)
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      That's apt :)