Axion-like particles (ALPs) with lepton-flavor violating couplings can be probed in exotic muon and tau decays. The sensitivity of different experiments depends strongly on the ALP mass and its couplings to leptons and photons. For ALPs that can be resonantly produced, the sensitivity of three-body decays such as $μ\to 3e$ and $τ\to 3μ$ exceeds by many orders of magnitude that of radiative decays like $μ\to eγ$ and $τ\toμγ$. Searches for these two types of processes are therefore highly complementary. We discuss experimental constraints on ALPs with a single dominant lepton-flavor violating coupling. Allowing for one or more such couplings offers qualitatively new ways to explain the anomalies related to the magnetic moments of the muon and electron.
Precision flavor experiments can look for the QCD axion complementarily to usual searches with axion helio- and haloscopes, allowing to test PQ breaking scales as high as $10^{12} \, {\rm GeV}$. Such searches are sensitive to flavor-violating axion couplings, which are generic and potentially sizable whenever SM fermions carry flavor non-universal PQ charges. A particularly predictive scenario is obtained when PQ is identified with the simplest FN flavor symmetry, so that all flavor-violating axion couplings are related to Yukawa hierarchies, up to ${\cal O}(1)$ coefficients.
Standard Model extensions with light axions are well-motivated by the observed Dark Matter abundance and the Peccei-Quinn solution to the Strong CP Problem. In general such axions can have large flavor-violating couplings to SM fermions, which naturally arise in scenarios where the Peccei-Quinn symmetry also explains the hierarchical pattern of fermion masses and mixings. I will discuss how these couplings allow for efficient axion production from the decays of SM particles, giving the opportunity to probe flavored axion Dark Matter with precision flavor experiments, astrophysics and cosmology…
We extend the work of Carone, Chaurasia and Vasquez on non-supersymmetric models of flavor based on the double tetrahedral group. Three issues are addressed: (1) the sector of flavor-symmetry-breaking fields is simplified and their potential studied explicitly, (2) a flavorful axion is introduced to solve the strong CP problem and (3) the model is extended to include the neutrino sector. We show how the model can accommodate the strong hierarchies manifest in the charged fermion Yukawa matrices, while predicting a qualitatively different form for the light neutrino mass matrix that is consiste…
We show how the scales responsible for Peccei-Quinn (PQ), seesaw, and Froggatt and Nielsen (FN) mechanisms can be fixed, by constructing a compact model for resolving rather recent, but fast-growing issues in astro-particle physics, including quark and leptonic mixings and CP violations, high-energy neutrinos, QCD axion, and axion cooling of stars. The model is motivated by the flavored PQ symmetry for unifying the flavor physics and string theory. The QCD axion decay constant congruent to the seesaw scale, through its connection to the astro-particle constraints of both the stellar evolution …
The hierarchy of fermion masses in the standard model may arise via the breaking of discrete gauge symmetries. The renormalizable interactions of the flavor-symmetry-breaking potential can have accidental global symmetries that are spontaneously broken, leading to pseudo-goldstone bosons that may drive inflation. We consider two-field, axion-monodromy inflation models in which the inflaton is identified with a linear combination of pseudo-goldstone bosons of the flavor sector. We show that the resulting models are nontrivially constrained by current cosmological data as well as the requirement…
We study the sensitivity of the existing MEG data to lepton flavor violating axion-like particles produced through $μ^+ \to e^+ a γ$ and estimate the discovery potential for the upcoming MEG II experiment in this channel. The MEG II signal efficiency can be improved significantly if a new trigger can be implemented in a dedicated run with a reduced beam intensity. This search would establish the world leading measurement in this channel with only 1 month of data taking.
We show that heavy quark axion is not necessarily a hadronic axion, which manifests in the quark and lepton seesaw mechanism. We introduce a heavy $SU(2)$ singlet fermion for each known fermion in order to unify the axion scale and the seesaw scale. The light quarks and leptons gain their masses by the seesaw mechanism. Even though our axion model gives a kind of heavy quark axion, the axion has tree level lepton--axion coupling suppressed by $F_a$, contrary to a widely known belief that heavy quark axions are hadronic.
The well-known leptonic U(1) symmetry of the standard model of quarks and leptons is extended to include a number of new fermions and scalars. The resulting theory has an invisible QCD axion (thereby solving the strong CP problem), a candidate for weak-scale dark matter, as well as radiative neutrino masses. A possible key connection is a color-triplet scalar, which may be produced and detected at the Large Hadron Collider.
A Peccei-Quinn~(PQ) symmetry is proposed in order to generate in the Standard Model~(SM) quark sector a realistic mass matrix ansatz with five texture-zeros. Limiting our analysis to Hermitian mass matrices, we show that this requires a minimum of 4 Higgs doublets. This model allows assigning values close to 1 for several Yukawa couplings, giving insight into the origin of the mass scales in the SM. Since the PQ charges are non-universal, the model features Flavor-Changing Neutral Currents~(FCNC) at the tree level. From the analytical expressions for the FCNC we report the allowed region in th…
We revisit the flavor-changing processes involving an axion-like particle (ALP) in the context of generic ALP effective lagrangian with a discussion of possible UV completions providing the origin of the relevant bare ALP couplings. We focus on the minimal scenario that ALP has flavor-conserving couplings at tree level, and the leading flavor-changing couplings arise from the loops involving the Yukawa couplings of the Standard Model fermions. We note that such radiatively generated flavor-changing ALP couplings can be easily suppressed in field theoretic ALP models with sensible UV completion…
We show that Peccei-Quinn and lepton number symmetries can be a natural outcome in a 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos after imposing a Z_11 x Z_2 symmetry. This symmetry is suitably accommodated in this model when we augmented its spectrum by including merely one singlet scalar field. We work out the breaking of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry, yielding the axion, and study the phenomenological consequences. The main result of this work is that the solution to the strong CP problem can be implemented in a natural way, implying an invisible axion phenomenologically unconstrained, free of domai…
Axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) are well-motivated low-energy relics of high-energy extensions of the Standard Model (SM). We investigate the phenomenology of an ALP with flavor-changing couplings, and present a comprehensive analysis of quark and lepton flavor-changing observables within a general ALP effective field theory. Observables studied include rare meson decays, flavor oscillations of neutral mesons, rare lepton decays, and dipole moments. We derive bounds on the general ALP couplings as a function of its mass, consistently taking into account the ALP lifetime and branching ra…
We construct a string-inspired model, motivated by the flavored Peccei-Quinn (PQ) axions, as a useful bridge between flavor physics and string theory. The key feature is two anomalous gauged $U(1)$ symmetries, responsible for both the fermion mass hierarchy problem of the standard model and the strong CP problem, that combine string theory with flavor physics and severely constrain the form of the F- and D-term contributions to the potential. In the context of supersymmetric moduli stabilization we stabilize the size moduli with positive masses while leaving two axions massless and one axion m…
Models of minimal lepton flavor violation where the seesaw scale is higher than the relevant flavor scale predict that all lepton flavor violation is proportional to the charged lepton Yukawa matrix. If extra vector-like leptons are within the reach of the LHC, it will be possible to test the resulting predictions in ATLAS/CMS.
Because the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry has to be anomalous to solve the strong CP puzzle, some colored and chiral fermions have to transform non-trivially under this symmetry. But when the SM fermions are charged, as in the PQ or DFSZ models, this symmetry ends up entangled with the SM global symmetries, baryon (B) and lepton (L) numbers. This raises several questions addressed in this paper. First, the compatibility of axion models with some explicit B and/or L violating effects is analyzed, including those arising from seesaw mechanisms, electroweak instanton interactions, or explicit B and …
We discuss the impact of fermion mass matrices on some lepton number violating processes, namely baryogenesis via leptogenesis and neutrinoless double beta decay, and on some lepton flavor violating processes, namely radiative lepton decays in supersymmetric seesaw models.
We extend the notion of Minimal Flavor Violation to the lepton sector. We introduce a symmetry principle which allows us to express lepton flavor violation in the charged lepton sector in terms of neutrino masses and mixing angles. We explore the dependence of the rates for flavor changing radiative charged lepton decays (ell(i) -> ell(j) + gamma) and mu-to-e conversion in nuclei on the scales for total lepton number violation, lepton flavor violation and the neutrino masses and mixing angles. Measurable rates are obtained when the scale for total lepton number violation is much larger than th…
In this talk, I will present the status of lepton flavor physics in composite Higgs models with partial compositeness in the light of recent data in the lepton sector. I will consider anarchic flavor setups, scenarios with flavor symmetries, and minimal incarnations of the see-saw mechanism that naturally predict non-negligible lepton compositeness. The focus will be on lepton flavor violating processes, dipole moments, and on probes of lepton flavor universality, all providing stringent tests of partial compositeness. The expected size of effects in the different approaches to lepton flavor a…
We show that in supersymmetric models with explicit flavor lepton number violation due to soft supersymmetry breaking terms there must be flavor lepton number violation in slepton decays. We propose to look for flavor lepton number violation in righthanded selectron and smuon decays. For selectron and smuon lighter than 80 Gev flavor lepton number violation in slepton decays could be discovered at LEP2 provided the mixing betwen selectron and smuon is not small. We also estimate NLC discovery potential of the lepton flavor number violation in slepton decays.
The observation of charged lepton flavor violation is a clear sign of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). In this work, we investigate the sensitivity of future lepton colliders to charged lepton flavor violation via on-shell production of bileptons, and compare their sensitivity with current constraints and future sensitivities of low-energy experiments. Bileptons couple to two charged leptons with possibly different flavors and are obtained by expanding the general SM gauge invariant Lagrangians with or without lepton number conservation. We find that future lepton colliders will provide…
Flavor violating axion couplings can be in action before recombination, and they can fill the early universe with an additional radiation component. Working within a model-independent framework, we consider an effective field theory for the axion field and quantify axion production. Current cosmological data exclude already a fraction of the available parameter space, and the bounds will improve significantly with future CMB-S4 surveys. Remarkably, we find that future cosmological bounds will be comparable or even stronger than the ones obtained in our terrestrial laboratories.
We show that in supersymmetric models with explicit flavor lepton number violation due to soft supersymmetry breaking mass terms there could be detectable flavor lepton number violation in slepton decays. We estimate LHC discovery potential of the lepton flavor number violation in slepton decays.
We investigate the most interesting decay processes involving axions, photons and the lightest pseudoscalar mesons, making use of a chiral effective Lagrangian model with $L=3$ light quark flavors, which also includes the flavor-singlet pseudoscalar meson and implements the $U(1)$ axial anomaly of the fundamental theory. In particular, we compute the electromagnetic coupling of the axion to photons and we compare our result with the prediction of the Chiral Effective Lagrangian with $L=2$ light quark flavors. Moreover, we study the decay channels $η/η'\rightarrow ππa$ and we estimate the corre…
Now the bounds on the lepton-flavor violating (LFV) decay modes of tau lepton are being improved by the Belle experiment in the KEK B factory. In this paper the LFV decay of tau lepton is discussed in the supersymmetric seesaw model, using the current neutrino oscillation data.
I discuss different theories of leptonic flavor and their capability of describing the features of the lepton sector, namely charged lepton masses, neutrino masses, lepton mixing angles and leptonic (low and high energy) CP phases. In particular, I show examples of theories with an abelian flavor symmetry G_f, with a non-abelian G_f as well as theories with non-abelian G_f and CP.
We propose a new mechanism to explain neutrino masses with lepton number conservation, in which the Dirac neutrino masses are generated at the two-loop level involving a dark matter candidate. In this model, branching ratios of lepton flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson can be much larger than those of lepton flavor violating decays of charged leptons. If lepton flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson are observed at future collider experiments without detecting lepton flavor violating decays of charged leptons, most of the models previously proposed for tiny neutrino masses are excl…
We study the supersymmetric model with the A4 lepton flavor symmetry, in particular soft supersymmetry breaking terms, which are predicted from the A4 lepton flavor symmetry. We evaluate soft slepton masses and A-terms within the framework of supergravity theory. Constraints due to experiments of flavor changing neutral current processes are examined.
We study the radiative lepton flavor violating l_i -> l_jγdecays in the two Higgs doublet model, respecting the Randall Sundrum scenario and estimate the contributions of the KK modes of left (right) handed charged lepton doublets (singlets) on the branching ratios. We observe that the branching ratios are sensitive to the contributions of the charged lepton KK modes.
Large mixing parameters of neutrino mass eigenstates in the neutrino flavor eigenstates are determined, and interpreted as closely related to the neutrino and charged lepton mass-ratio patterns. The three known seemingly different charged lepton and quasi-degenerate neutrino deviation-from-extreme hierarchies are shown to be three particular manifestations of one unifying quadratic hierarchy-rule in lepton flavor physics.
We analyze four-lepton contact interactions that lead to lepton flavor violating processes, with violation of individual family lepton number but total lepton number conserved. In an effective Lagrangian framework, the assumption of gauge invariance leads to relations among branching ratios and cross sections of lepton flavor violating processes. In this paper, we work out how to use these relations systematically. We also study the consequences of loop-induced processes.
We systematically analyze the correlations between the various leptonic and hadronic flavor violating processes arising in SUSY Grand Unified Theories. Using the GUT-symmetric relations between the soft SUSY breaking parameters, we assess the impact of hadronic and leptonic flavor observables on the SUSY sources of flavor violation.
Due to the smallness of the lepton Yukawa couplings, higher-dimensional operators can give a significant contribution to the lepton masses. In this case, the lepton mass matrix and the matrix of lepton-Higgs couplings are misaligned leading to lepton flavor violation (LFV) mediated by the Standard Model Higgs boson. We derive model-independent bounds on the Higgs flavor violating couplings and quantify LFV in decays of leptons and electric dipole moments for a class of lepton-Higgs operators contributing to lepton masses. We find significant Higgs-mediated LFV effects at both 1-loop and 2-loop…
In a generic supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, there will be lepton flavor violation at a neutral gaugino vertex due to misalignment between the lepton Yukawa couplings and the slepton soft masses. Sleptons produced at the LHC through the cascade decays of squarks and gluinos can give a sizable number of events with 4 leptons. This channel could give a clean signature of supersymmetric lepton flavor violation under conditions which are identified.
The study for lepton flavor violation combined with the neutrino oscillation may provide more information about the lepton flavor structure of the grand unified theory. In this paper, we study two lepton flavor violation processes, $τ\to μγ$ and $Z\to τμ$, in the context of supersymmetric SO(10) grand unified models. We find the two processes are both of phenomenological interest. In particular the latter may be important in some supersymmetric parameter space where the former is suppressed. Thus, Z-dacay may offer another chance for looking for lepton flavor violation.
The field of lepton flavor violation will live an era of unprecedented developments in the near future, with dedicated experiments in different fronts. The observation of a flavor violating process involving charged leptons would be a clear evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model, thus motivating the great effort in this direction. Furthermore, in case a positive signal is found, a proper theoretical understanding of the lepton flavor anatomy of a given model would become necessary. Here I briefly review the current situation, emphasizing the most relevant theoretical and phenomenologica…
We consider extensions of the standard model inspired by intersecting D-brane constructions, in order to address flavor mass textures. We include additional anomalous gauge symmetries, and scalar fields to break them and to generate Froggatt-Nielsen mass terms. Green-Schwarz axions are included to cancel mixed anomalies rendering the models consistent. At low energies, a residual anomalous global symmetry remains, and its associated pseudo-Goldstone mode becomes the physical axion, which can be interpreted as an axion arising from open string modes. General considerations show that such axions…
The observation of lepton flavor violation indicates new physics beyond the Standard Model. Lepton colliders are ideal facilities to probe charged lepton flavor violation (CLFV) signals induced by new physics at high energy. In this work we perform a comprehensive study of the sensitivity of future lepton colliders to charged lepton flavor violation. We consider the most general renormalizable Lagrangian coupling two leptons to new bosonic particles, involving both $ΔL=0$ and $ΔL=2$ interactions. The CLFV processes are introduced by the exchange of off-shell new particles at tree-level. We fin…
We discuss charged lepton flavor violation in supersymmetric models with extended leptonic sectors at low energies. Contrary to the usual high-scale realizations of the seesaw mechanism, these non-minimal supersymmetric models have new superfields and/or interactions at the supersymmetric scale. As a consequence of this, the resulting lepton flavor violating phenomenology may be very different from that of minimal models.
