2002/07/31 by Marc Sher · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.66.057301
published as Phys.Rev. D66 (2002) 057301 · 5 pages, 2 figures. Paragraph about CLEO measurements added. Version to appear in PRD
arxiv created 2002/07/31 · openalex publication_date 2002/09/12 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The existence of large \ensuremathν_\ensuremathμ\ensuremath-\ensuremathν_\ensuremathτ mixing suggests the likelihood of large smuon-stau mixing in supersymmetric models, leading to \ensuremathμ and \ensuremathτ number violation. In addition to interesting signatures in slepton and neutralino production and decay, this will lead to rare \ensuremathτ decays, such as \stackrel\ensuremath→\ensuremathτ\ensuremathμ\ensuremathγ. Recently, it has been pointed out that the \stackrel\ensuremath→\ensuremathτ3\ensuremathμ branching ratio could be substantial in the large tan\ensuremathβ region of parameter space, due to an induced \ensuremathμ\ensuremath-\ensuremathτ-Higgs vertex. In this paper, another signature, \stackrel\ensuremath→\ensuremathτ\ensuremathμ\ensuremathη is considered. In the large tan\ensuremathβ region, it is shown that the branching ratio of \stackrel\ensuremath→\ensuremathτ\ensuremathμ\ensuremathη is 8.4 times the branching ratio of \stackrel\ensuremath→\ensuremathτ3\ensuremathμ, independent of any unknown parameters, and it will thus give the most stringent bound on Higgs-mediated lepton flavor violation, and may provide its first signature. In the other regions of parameter space, where \stackrel\ensuremath→\ensuremathτ\ensuremathμ\ensuremathγ is the most prominent decay, the branching ratio for \stackrel\ensuremath→\ensuremathτ\ensuremathμ\ensuremathη is always substantially lower.