New constraint on the existence of the μ+ → e+ γ decay

Towards a new generation of Charged Lepton Flavour Violation searches at the Paul Scherrer Institut: The MEG upgrade and the Mu3e experiment

The MEG experiment has recently set a new upper limit on the branching ratio of the µ+ → e+γ decay, ℬ(µ+ → e+γ) < 4.2 × 10−13 (at 90% confidence level) and un upgrade of the experiment (the MEGII experiment) is ongoing with the aim of improving the single event sensitivity (SES) by one order of magnitude with respect to the previous MEG experiment’s SES. The strong scientific motivation associated with the charged Lepton Flavour Violation (cLFV) searches pushes also towards searching for the complementary muon cLFV µ+ → e+e+e− decay with a completely new apparatus, the Mu3e experiment, aiming at a SES improved by at least three orders of magnitude with respect to the previous SINDRUM experiment’s SES (Mu3e phase I). An ultimate SES of few ×10−16 is foreseen requiring 109 µ/s (Mu3e phase II). Both experiments will be hosted at the Paul Scherrer Institut which currently delivers the most intense continuous low energy muon beam in the world up to few ×108 µ/s. The status of both the MEGII and Mu3e phase I experiments is given.

MEG II and Mu3e status and plan

The MEG experiment searching for lepton flavor violating muon decay, finished data taking successfully in 2013. The final sensitivity of the experiment was 5.3 × 10−13, and since the experiment did not find any signal, the upper limit of the branching ratio of the µ → e+γ was set to be 4.2 × 10−13 at 90% C.L.. The MEG II experiment will have a target sensitivity improved by an order of magnitude down to 6 ×10−14 with three years data taking. In 2018 after the detector integration, the muon beam data taking took place with a limited number of readout channels. In 2019, the engineering run and the physics run will be started. The Mu3e experiment will search for the lepton flavor violating decay µ+→ e+e−e+ with unprecedented sensitivity. Construction of the detector is going to start in 2020 and for the first phase a single event sensitivity of 2 × 10−15 is expected.

Effective-field theories for charged lepton flavour violation

These proceedings review the status of present and future bounds on muonic lepton flavour violating transitions in the context of an effective-field theory defined below the electroweak scale. A specific focus is set on the phenomenology of μ → eγ, μ → 3e transitions and coherent μ → e nuclear conversion in the light of current and future experiments. Once the experimental limits are recast into bounds at higher scales, it is shown that the interplay between the various experiments is crucial to cover all corners of the parameter space.

Charged lepton flavour violation searches at the Paul Scherrer Institut: Status of the MEGII and Mu3e experiments

The MEG experiment has recently set a new upper limit on the branching ratio of the μ+ → e+γ decay, B(μ+ → e+γ) < 4.2 × 10-13 (at 90% confidence level) and un upgrade of the experiment (the MEGII experiment) is ongoing with the aim of improving the single event sensitivity (SES) by one order of magnitude with respect to the previous MEG experiment’s SES. The strong scientific motivation associated with the charged Lepton Flavour Violation (cLFV) searches pushes also towards searching for the complementary muon cLFV μ+ → e+e+e- decay with the Mu3e experiment aiming at a SES improved by at least three orders of magnitude with respect to the previous SINDRUM experiment’s SES (phase I) up to an ultimate SES of few ×10-16. Both experiments will be hosted at the Paul Scherrer Institut which delivers the most intense continuous low energy muon beam in the world up to few ×108 μ/s. The status of both the MEGII and Mu3e experiments is given.

Search for lepton-flavour-violating decays of the Higgs and Z bosons with the ATLAS detector

Direct searches for lepton flavour violation in decays of the Higgs and Z bosons with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are presented. The following three decays are considered: [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text]. The searches are based on the data sample of proton-proton collisions collected by the ATLAS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 [Formula: see text] at a centre-of-mass energy of [Formula: see text] TeV. No significant excess is observed, and upper limits on the lepton-flavour-violating branching ratios are set at the 95[Formula: see text] confidence level: Br[Formula: see text], Br[Formula: see text], and Br[Formula: see text].

A facility to search for hidden particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case

This paper describes the physics case for a new fixed target facility at CERN SPS. The SHiP (search for hidden particles) experiment is intended to hunt for new physics in the largely unexplored domain of very weakly interacting particles with masses below the Fermi scale, inaccessible to the LHC experiments, and to study tau neutrino physics. The same proton beam setup can be used later to look for decays of tau-leptons with lepton flavour number non-conservation, [Formula: see text] and to search for weakly-interacting sub-GeV dark matter candidates. We discuss the evidence for physics beyond the standard model and describe interactions between new particles and four different portals-scalars, vectors, fermions or axion-like particles. We discuss motivations for different models, manifesting themselves via these interactions, and how they can be probed with the SHiP experiment and present several case studies. The prospects to search for relatively light SUSY and composite particles at SHiP are also discussed. We demonstrate that the SHiP experiment has a unique potential to discover new physics and can directly probe a number of solutions of beyond the standard model puzzles, such as neutrino masses, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, dark matter, and inflation.

Maximal sfermion flavour violation in super-GUTs

We consider supersymmetric grand unified theories with soft supersymmetry-breaking scalar masses [Formula: see text] specified above the GUT scale (super-GUTs) and patterns of Yukawa couplings motivated by upper limits on flavour-changing interactions beyond the Standard Model. If the scalar masses are smaller than the gaugino masses [Formula: see text], as is expected in no-scale models, the dominant effects of renormalisation between the input scale and the GUT scale are generally expected to be those due to the gauge couplings, which are proportional to [Formula: see text] and generation independent. In this case, the input scalar masses [Formula: see text] may violate flavour maximally, a scenario we call MaxSFV, and there is no supersymmetric flavour problem. We illustrate this possibility within various specific super-GUT scenarios that are deformations of no-scale gravity.

On the exotic Higgs decays in effective field theory

We discuss exotic Higgs decays in an effective field theory where the Standard Model is extended by dimension-6 operators. We review and update the status of two-body lepton- and quark-flavor-violating decays involving the Higgs boson. We also comment on the possibility of observing three-body flavor-violating Higgs decays in this context.

Lepton flavour violation in composite Higgs models

We discuss in detail the constraints on the partial compositeness coming from flavour and CP violation in the leptonic sector. In the first part we present a formulation of partial compositeness in terms of a flavour symmetry group and a set of spurions, whose background values specify the symmetry breaking pattern. In such a framework we construct the complete set of dimension-six operators describing lepton flavour violation and CP violation. By exploiting the existing bounds, we derive limits on the compositeness scale in different scenarios, characterised by increasing restrictions on the spurion properties. We confirm that in the most general case the compositeness scale should lie well above 10 TeV. However, if in the composite sector the mass parameters and Yukawa couplings are universal, such a bound can be significantly lowered, without necessarily reproducing the case of minimal flavour violation. The most sensitive processes are decays of charged leptons either of radiative type or into three charged leptons, [Formula: see text] conversion in nuclei and the electric dipole moment of the electron. In the second part we explicitly compute the Wilson coefficients of the relevant dimension-six operators in the so-called two-site model, embodying the symmetry breaking pattern discussed in our first part, and we compare the results with those of the general spurion analysis.

Lepton flavour violating top decays at the LHC

We consider lepton-flavour violating decays of the top quark, mediated by 4-fermion operators. We compile constraints on a complete set of SU(3) [Formula: see text] U(1)-invariant operators, arising from their loop contributions to rare decays and from HERA's single-top search. The bounds on e-[Formula: see text] flavour change are more restrictive than on [Formula: see text]-[Formula: see text]; nonetheless the top could decay to a jet [Formula: see text] with a branching ratio of order [Formula: see text]. We estimate that the currently available LHC data (20 fb[Formula: see text] at 8 TeV) could be sensitive to [Formula: see text]+ jet) [Formula: see text], and we extrapolate that 100 fb[Formula: see text] at 13 TeV could reach a sensitivity of [Formula: see text].

Towards the identification of new physics through quark flavour violating processes

We outline a systematic strategy that should help in this decade to identify new physics (NP) beyond the standard model (SM) by means of quark flavour violating processes, and thereby extend the picture of short distance physics down to scales as short as 10(-20) m and even shorter distance scales corresponding to energies of 100 TeV. Rather than using all of the possible flavour-violating observables that will be measured in the coming years at the LHC, SuperKEKB and in Kaon physics dedicated experiments at CERN, J-PARC and Fermilab, we concentrate on those observables that are theoretically clean and very sensitive to NP. Assuming that the data on the selected observables will be very precise, we stress the importance of correlations between these observables as well as of future precise calculations of non-perturbative parameters by means of lattice QCD simulations with dynamical fermions. Our strategy consists of twelve steps, which we will discuss in detail while illustrating the possible outcomes with the help of the SM, models with constrained minimal flavour violation (CMFV), MFV at large and models with tree-level flavour changing neutral currents mediated by neutral gauge bosons and scalars. We will also briefly summarize the status of a number of concrete models. We propose DNA charts that exhibit correlations between flavour observables in different NP scenarios. Models with new left-handed and/or right-handed currents and non-MFV interactions can be distinguished transparently in this manner. We emphasize the important role of the stringent CMFV relations between various observables as standard candles of flavour physics. The pattern of deviations from these relations may help in identifying the correct NP scenario. The success of this program will be very much facilitated through direct signals of NP at the LHC, even if the LHC will not be able to probe the physics at scales shorter than 4 × 10(-20) m. We also emphasize the importance of lepton flavour violation, electric dipole moments, and (g - 2)e, μ in these studies.