Interpretation of the recent Kolar events

Abstract

We give plausible interpretations of the unusual events seen in the proton decay detector at Kolar Gold Fields indicating the existence of a massive (≳2GeV) long lived (10-8-10-9s) particle. We show that it is possible to accommodate the particle in the standard model as a fourth generation neutrino, or in E6 grand unified theory as a neutral fermion occurring in 27 representation or in supersymmetric theory as a scalar neutrino. However, there is a difficulty in explaining the large production rate for the particle. © 1989 Indian Academy of Sciences.