当类轴子粒子（ALP）的Peccei-Quinn荷不具代际普适性时，可能会诱发味改变中性流（FCNCs）。迄今为止，对具有底夸克的味破坏ALP耦合的搜寻主要集中在低能区的$B$介子FCNC过程。最近对$B\ o K +X$稀有衰变的测量，对不同衰变模式下轻ALP的夸克味破坏施加了严格界限。在本研究中，我们提出在LHC及其升级版上对重ALP的底味破坏相互作用进行新颖的直接搜寻，即QCD产生伴随一个$b$喷注和一个轻喷注的ALP过程$p~p\ o b~j~a$。我们考虑了ALP衰变为光子、μ子以及不可见ALP衰变。使用提升决策树（BDT）算法分析事件，并通过输入信号和背景的运动学可观测量来训练BDT分类器。最后，我们展示了强子对撞机搜寻前景与来自$B$介子混合及$B$介子衰变为轻ALP的低能$B$介子约束之间的互补性。
英文摘要：
The axion-like particle (ALP) may induce flavor-changing neutral currents (FCNCs) when their Peccei-Quinn charges are not generation universal. The search for flavor-violating ALP couplings with a bottom quark so far focused on FCNC processes of $B$ mesons at low energies. The recent measurements of $B\to K +X$ rare decays place stringent bounds on the quark flavor violations of a light ALP in different decay modes. In this work we propose a novel direct search for bottom flavor-violating interaction of a heavy ALP at the LHC and its upgrades, namely QCD production of an ALP associated with one $b$ jet and one light jet $p~p\to b~j~a$. We consider the decay of the ALP to photons, muons and invisible ALP decays. The Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) algorithm is used to analyze the events and we train the BDT classifier by feeding in the kinematic observables of signal and backgrounds. Finally, we show the complementarity between the search prospects of hadron colliders and the low-energy $B$ meson constraints from $B$ meson mixing and $B$ meson decays to a light ALP.
We examine the low-energy signatures of axion-like particles (ALPs) in lepton flavor violating (LFV) processes. By using a dimension-5 effective Lagrangian, we compute the most general ALP contributions to LFV decays of leptons and mesons. The provided expressions are valid for any choice of ALP mass and couplings. We explore the complementarity of different processes, identifying specific patterns to be experimentally tested. Constraints on LFV couplings are derived from existing data and prospects for forthcoming experiments are also discussed. As a by-product, we revisit the possibility of …
We assess the status of past and future experiments on lepton flavor violating (LFV) muon and tau decays into a light, invisible, axion-like particle (ALP), $a$. We propose a new experimental setup for MEG II, the MEGII-fwd, with a forward calorimeter placed downstream from the muon stopping target. Searching for $μ\to e a$ decays MEGII-fwd is maximally sensitive to LFV ALPs, if these have nonzero couplings to right-handed leptons. The experimental set-up suppresses the (left-handed) Standard Model background in the forward direction by controlling the polarization purity of the muon beam. The…
We propose new searches for axion-like particles (ALPs) produced in flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) processes. This proposal exploits the often-overlooked coupling of ALPs to W bosons, leading to FCNC production of ALPs even in the absence of a direct coupling to fermions. Our proposed searches for resonant ALP production in decays such as $B\rightarrow K^{(*)}a,\,a\rightarrow γγ$ and $K\rightarrow πa, \,a\rightarrow γγ$ could greatly improve upon the current sensitivity to ALP couplings to Standard Model particles. We also determine analogous constraints and discovery prospects for inv…
Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) are pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated with spontaneously broken global $U(1)$ symmetries. Such particles can have lepton-flavor-violating (LFV) couplings to the SM charged leptons. LFV ALPs provide the possibility to address some of the SM long-lasting problems. We investigate the sensitivity of a future muon collider suggested by the Muon Accelerator Program (MAP) to the production of LFV ALPs in the ALP mass range $m_a\leq1$ MeV. ALPs are assumed to be produced through the LFV decay $τ\ra\ell a$ ($\ell=e,μ$) of one of the tau leptons produced in the muon-an…
Probing CP and flavor violation in neutral kaon decays with ALPs
University of California Santa Cruz（加州大学圣克鲁兹分校）；Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics（圣克鲁兹粒子物理研究所）；University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）
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 co…
The impact of axion-like particles (ALPs) on the search of permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) of molecules, atoms, nuclei and nucleons is systematically investigated. We classify first the full set of CP-violating Jarlskog invariants emerging in the ALP effective field theory (EFT) containing operators up to dimension-5. Then, we evaluate the leading short-distance effects to the EDMs up to two-loop order. The high sensitivity of EDMs to CP-violating ALP interactions is emphasised exploiting both the current and projected experimental sensitivities.
We report on the recent results of searches for lepton-flavor-violating tau decays as well as lepton-number-violating B decays with the world-highest data samples accumulated at the Belle.
Light pseudoscalars, or axion like particles (ALPs), are much studied due to their potential relevance to the fields of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. The most relevant coupling of ALPs from the viewpoint of current experimental searches is to the photon: in this work, we study the generation of this coupling as an effect of quantum corrections, originated from an underlying Lorentz violating background. Most interestingly, we show that the interaction so generated turns out to be Lorentz invariant, thus mimicking the standard ALPs coupling to the photon that is considered in th…
The discovery of a non-zero rate for a lepton flavor violating decay mode of the Higgs boson would definitely be an indication of New Physics. We review the prospects for such signal in Two Higgs Doublet Models, in particular for Higgs boson decays into $τμ$ final states. We will show that this scenario contains all the necessary ingredients to provide large flavor violating rates and still be compatible with the stringent limits from direct searches and low-energy flavor experiments.
In the standard model flavor violating decays of the top quark and of the Higgs boson are highly suppressed. Further, the flavor violating decays of the top and of the Higgs are also small in MSSM and not observable in current or in near future experiment. In this work we show that much larger branching ratios for these decays can be achieved in an extended MSSM model with an additional vector like quark generation. Specifically we show that in the extended model one can achieve branching ratios for $t\to h^0 c$ and $t\to h^0 u$ as large as the current experimental upper limits given by the AT…
We study the lepton flavor violating process, $e+ T \to τ+T'$, at a few GeV. This process can be studied by experiments directing GeV scale electron or positron beams on internal or fixed targets. We study the effects of some low energy lepton flavor violating interactions on this process. We study the sensitivities of this process on these low energy lepton flavor violating interactions and compare them to the sensitivities of lepton flavor violating $τ$ decay processes. Comparing with $τ$ decay processes, this process provides another way to study the lepton flavor violating effects with $e-…
We argue that lepton flavor violating (LFV) decays $M \to \ell_1 \overline \ell_2$ of quarkonium states $M$ with different quantum numbers could be used to put constraints on the Wilson coefficients of effective operators describing LFV interactions at low energy scales. We note that restricted kinematics of the two-body quarkonium decays allows us to select operators with particular quantum numbers, significantly reducing the reliance on the single operator dominance assumption that is prevalent in constraining parameters of the effective LFV Lagrangian. We shall also argue that studies of ra…
In this work productions of charged and doubly charged scalars and their lepton flavor violating collider signals in the framework of littlest Higgs model at LHC are studied. In the allowed parameter region of the littlest Higgs model, the production rates of the scalars of littlest Higgs model via $pp \to ϕ^{++}ϕ^{-}$, $pp \to ϕ^+ϕ^-$ and $pp \to ϕ^{++}ϕ^{--}$ processes are calculated. We obtained that charged and doubly charged scalar pairs can be produced at LHC . Considering the possible lepton flavor violating decays of charged scalars found in literature, final state analysis is done. Th…
Recently, it was pointed out that the electron and muon g-2 discrepancies can be explained simultaneously by a flavor-violating axion-like particle (ALP). We show that the parameter regions favored by the muon g-2 are already excluded by the muonium-antimuonium oscillation bound. In contrast, those for the electron g-2 can be consistent with this bound when the ALP is heavier than 1.5 GeV. We propose to search for a signature of the same-sign and same-flavor lepton pairs and the forward-backward muon asymmetry to test the model at the Belle II experiment.
We argue that lepton flavor violating (LFV) decays $M \to \ell_1 \overline{\ell}_2$ of meson states $M$ with different quantum numbers could be used to put constraints on the Wilson coefficients of effective operators describing LFV interactions at low energy scales. We note that the restricted kinematics of the two-body decay of quarkonium or a heavy quark meson allows us to select operators with particular quantum numbers, significantly reducing the reliance on the $single \ operator \ dominance$ assumption that is prevalent in constraining parameters of the effective LFV Lagrangian. We shal…
We study new top flavor violating resonances that are singly produced in association with a top at the LHC. Such top flavor violating states could be responsible for the Tevatron top forward-backward asymmetry. Since top flavor violating states can directly decay to a top (or anti-top) and jet, and are produced in conjunction with another (oppositely charged) top, the direct signature of such states is a t j (or tbar j) resonance in t tbar j events. In general, these states can be very light and have O(1) couplings to the top sector so that they are copiously produced. We present a search stra…
Some yet unknown dynamics is expected to be at work behind the flavor puzzles of the Standard Model. Speculations exist that this may manifest itself in significant strength at the terascale. One consequence may be lepton flavor violation with total lepton number conserved. Already observed in neutrino oscillation experiments, such a phenomenon may show up more prominently at TeV energies, thus signaling a completely new physics. Proposed flavor violating charged dilepton states have already been studied with reference to the LHC. Here we study the production and detection at the LHC of flavor…
Lepton flavor-violating processes offer interesting possibilities to probe new physics at multi-TeV scale. We discuss those in the framework of effective field theory, emphasizing the role of gluonic operators. Those operators are obtained by integrating out heavy quarks that are kinematically inaccessible at the scale where low-energy experiments take place and make those experiments sensitive to the couplings of lepton flavor changing neutral currents to heavy quarks. We discuss constraints on the Wilson coefficients of those operators from the muon conversion $μ^- + (A,Z) \to e^- + (A,Z)$ a…
We examine the lepton flavor-changing processes in R-parity violating MSSM. First, we update the constraints on the relevant R-violating couplings by using the latest data on the rare decays l_i->l_j γ. We find that the updated constraints are much stronger than the old ones from rare Z-decays at LEP. Then we calculate the processes Z->l_i l_j and γγ->l_i l_j. We find that with the updated constraints the R-violating couplings can still enhance the rates of these processes to the sensitivity of GigaZ and photon-photon collision options of the ILC.
We briefly review the lepton flavor violating Z-decays at GigaZ as a probe of supersymmetry by focusing on $Z \to \ell_i \overline{\ell}_j$ in two representative supersymmetric models: the minimal supersymmetric model without R-parity and the supersymmetric seesaw model. We conclude that under the current experimental constraints from LEP and $\ell_i\to \ell_j γ$, these rare decays can still be enhanced to reach the sensitivity of the GigaZ. Therefore, supersymmetry can be probed via these decays at GigaZ.
A search for lepton flavor violating decays of the $τ$ lepton to a lighter mass lepton and a pseudoscalar meson has been performed using 339 fb$^{-1}$ of $e^+e^-$ annihilation data collected at a center-of-mass energy near 10.58 GeV by the BaBar detector at the SLAC PEP-II storage ring. No evidence of signal has been found, and upper limits on the branching fractions are set at $10^{-7}$ level.
We show that the discovery channel for dark matter (DM) production at colliders can be through flavor violating interactions resulting in a novel signature of a single top and large missing transverse energy. We discuss several examples where the production of DM is dominated by flavor violating couplings: minimal flavor violating models with a large bottom Yukawa, models with horizontal symmetries, and DM in nontrivial flavor group representations. Discovery at the 7 TeV LHC with a few fb^-1 may already be possible.
The present experimental status of searches for lepton flavor violating decays of the $τ$ lepton to a lighter mass lepton and a photon or a pseudoscalar meson is presented. The results obtained are from $e^+e^-$ annihilation data collected at a center-of-mass energy near 10.58 GeV by the \babar and the Belle detectors. In order to benefit from larger available datasets, the first $\babar-$Belle combinations of upper limits on the branching fractions of lepton flavor violating $τ$-decays are obtained.
We argue that radiative lepton flavor violating (RLFV) decays $P \to γ\ell_1 \overline{\ell}_2$ of $P =B^0_q$, $\bar{D}^0$, and $K^0$ meson states are robust probes of new physics models. In particular, they could be used to put constraints on the Wilson coefficients of effective operators describing lepton flavor-changing neutral current interactions at low energy scales. We set up a generic framework for describing these transitions and review new physics constraints from $P \to \ell_1 \bar \ell_2$ decays. There is discussion of how RLFV transitions provide access to the operators that canno…
Recent data from the ATLAS and CMS detectors at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN give a hint of possible violation of flavor in the leptonic decays of the Higgs boson. In this work we analyze the flavor violating leptonic decays $H^0_1\to l_i \bar l_j$ ($i\neq j$) within the framework of an MSSM extension with a vectorlike leptonic generation. Specifically we focus on the decay mode $H^0_1\to μτ$. The analysis is done including tree and loop contributions involving exchange of $W, Z$, charge and neutral higgs and leptons and mirror leptons, charginos and neutralinos and sleptons and mirror sl…
Direct searches for lepton flavor violating Higgs boson decays in the $τμ$ channel have been recently reported by the CMS collaboration. The results display a slight excess of signal events with a significance of 2.5$σ$, which translates into a branching ratio of about $1$%. By interpreting these findings as a hint for beyond the standard model physics, we show that the Type-III 2HDM is capable of reproducing such signal while at the same time satisfying vacuum stability, perturbativity, electroweak precision data, measured Higgs standard decay modes and low-energy lepton flavor violating cons…
We propose new perspective in searching for axion-like particles (ALPs) from quark and lepton flavor physics: measurements of the time-dependent CP asymmetry in $B^0 \to K_S^0 π^0 γ$ and the branching ratio of $B_s \to e^\pm μ^\mp$ decay possess, along with the anomalous magnetic moment of muon. In the mass range of sub-GeV, accessible by the flavorful ALPs search, the experimental sensitivity for these flavor observables reaches the maximum at around the pion mass scale (called the {\it sweetest} spots), where a couple of loopholes (unexplored regions) for the ALP parameter space have heretof…
We introduce a new method to search for the lepton-flavor violating Higgs decays $h\rightarrowτμ$ and $h\rightarrowτe$ in the leptonic $τ$ decay channel. In particular, the Standard Model background is estimated in a fully data driven way. The method exploits the asymmetry between electrons and muons in the final state of signal events and is sensitive to differences in the rates of the two decays. Using this method, we investigate the LHC sensitivity to these processes. With 20 ${\rm fb}^{-1}$ of data at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV, we expect a $3σ$ sensitivity for observing branching ratios of order $0…
Accurate supersymmetric spectra are required to confront data from direct and indirect searches of supersymmetry. \SUSEFLAV is a numerical tool which is capable of computing supersymmetric spectra accurately for various supersymmetric breaking scenarios applicable even in the presence of flavor violation. The program solves MSSM RGEs with complete $3\times3$ flavor mixing at 2-loop level and one loop finite threshold corrections to all MSSM parameters by incorporating radiative electroweak symmetry breaking conditions. The program also incorporates the Type-I seesaw mechanism with three massiv…
We address the impact of sterile fermions on the lepton flavor violating decays of quarkonia as well as of the $Z$ boson. We compute the relevant Wilson coefficients and show that the ${\rm B}(V\to\ell_α\ell_β)$, where $V=ϕ,ψ^{(n)}$, $Υ^{(n)},Z$ can be significantly enhanced in the case of large sterile fermion masses and a non-negligible active-sterile mixing. We illustrate that feature in a specific minimal realization of the inverse seesaw mechanism, known as $(2,3)$-ISS, and in an effective model in which the presence of non-standard sterile fermions is parameterized by means of one heavy …
The lepton flavor violating process $J/ψ\to ll' (l\neq l')$ serves as an ideal place to probe the unparticle theory. Such process can only occur at loop level in the Standard model (SM), so that should be very suppressed, by contrast in unparticle scenario, it happens at tree level and its contribution may be sizable for practical measurement. Moreover, the BESIII will offer the largest database on $J/ψ$ which makes more accurate measurements possible. Furthermore, for such purely leptonic decays background is relatively low and signal would be cleaner. Our work carefully investigates the poss…
Lepton Flavor Violating Higgs decays at the Compact Linear Collider
CERN（欧洲核子研究中心）；Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教 Pontificia 大学）；Millenium Institute for Subatomic Physics at the High Energy Frontier - SAPHIR（高能前沿亚原子物理千年研究所 - SAPHIR）
A two Higgs doublet model (2HDM) is one of the minimal extensions of the Standard Model (SM), and it is well-known that the general setup predicts the flavor-violating phenomena, mediated by neutral Higgs interactions. Recently the CMS collaboration has reported an excess of the lepton-flavor-violating Higgs decay in $h \rightarrow μτ$ channel with a significance of 2.5 $ σ$. We investigate the CMS excess in a general 2HDM with tree-level Flavor Changing Neutral Currents (FCNCs), and discuss its impact on the other physical observations. Especially, we see that the FCNCs relevant to the excess…
Supposing only Lorentz and the gauge invariances of the Lagrangian, we derive energy and angular distributions for $τ^\pm \to μ^\pm μ^\pm μ^\mp$ lepton flavor violating decay process. Using these results, we discuss methods to determine the parameters associated with the lepton flavor violating interactions.
We propose a search for long lived axion-like particles (ALPs) in exotic top decays. Flavour-violating ALPs appear as low energy effective theories for various new physics scenarios such as t-channel dark sectors or Froggatt-Nielsen models. In this case the top quark may decay to an ALP and an up- or charm-quark. For masses in the few GeV range, the ALP is long lived across most of the viable parameter space, suggesting a dedicated search. We propose to search for these long lived ALPs in $t\bar{t}$ events, using one top quark as a trigger. We focus on ALPs decaying in the hadronic calorimeter…
Lepton flavor violating decays $Z \to μτ$ and $J/Ψ, Υ\to μτ$ are considered. It is shown that these decays can reach sizeable magnitudes if some specific lepton-flavor violating 4-fermion operators are generated by low scale quantum gravity effects, or by some other new physics at a TeV scale.
We summarized our report on leptonic flavor violating Higgs decay into mu + tau under the scheme of a generic supersymmetric standard model without R parity. With known experimental constraints imposed, important combinations of R-parity violating parameters which can give notable branching ratios are listed.
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…
The stability of the standard vacuum imposes constraints on flavor violating trilinear soft terms which are stronger than the laboratory bounds coming from the absence of neutral flavor violations (FCNC). Furthermore, contrary to the FCNC bounds, these constraints persist even if the scale of supersymmetry breaking is arbitrarily large.
We study Lorentz violation effects on flavor transitions of high energy astrophysical neutrinos. It is shown that the appearance of Lorentz violating Hamiltonian can drastically change the flavor transition probabilities of astrophysical neutrinos. Predictions of Lorentz violation effects on flavor compositions of astrophysical neutrinos arriving on Earth are compared with IceCube flavor composition measurement which analyzes astrophysical neutrino events in the energy range between $25~{\rm TeV}$ and $2.8~{\rm PeV}$. Such a comparison indicates that the future IceCube-Gen2 will be able to pla…
In this paper we study lepton flavor violating semileptonic decays of heavy baryons in a framework of a model with large extra dimensions and a single generation . Resulting branching ratios for these decays mediated by Kaluza-Klein modes of photon and Z-boson are presented in a model-independent form.
We study constraints on light and feebly interacting bosons with lepton flavor violation from electron beam dump experiments. Scalar, vector, and dipole interactions of the bosons are analyzed, respectively, and excluded regions from the searches for decays into electron-positron pairs are derived. It is found that parameter regions unconstrained by flavor violating decays of muon can be excluded using the results of the E137 experiment. We also discuss the impact of the search for flavor violating decays of the light bosons in electron beam dump experiments.
We show that the predictions for lepton flavor violating decays, in the case of quasi-degenerate neutrinos, change drastically when we include in the computation the high-energy phases present in the matrix of neutrino Yukawa couplings.
