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Search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in Z-boson decays with the ATLAS detector

Publication ,  Journal Article
Aad, G; Abbott, B; Abbott, DC; Abud, AA; Abeling, K; Abhayasinghe, DK; Abidi, SH; Zeid, OSA; Abraham, NL; Abramowicz, H; Abreu, H; Abulaiti, Y ...
Published in: Nature Physics
July 1, 2021

Leptons with essentially the same properties apart from their mass are grouped into three families (or flavours). The number of leptons of each flavour is conserved in interactions, but this is not imposed by fundamental principles. Since the formulation of the standard model of particle physics, the observation of flavour oscillations among neutrinos has shown that lepton flavour is not conserved in neutrino weak interactions. So far, there has been no experimental evidence that this also occurs in interactions between charged leptons. Such an observation would be a sign of undiscovered particles or a yet unknown type of interaction. Here the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN reports a constraint on lepton-flavour-violating effects in weak interactions, searching for Z-boson decays into a τ lepton and another lepton of different flavour with opposite electric charge. The branching fractions for these decays are measured to be less than 8.1 × 10−6 (eτ) and 9.5 × 10−6 (μτ) at the 95% confidence level using 139 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of s=13TeV and 20.3 fb−1 at s=8TeV. These results supersede the limits from the Large Electron–Positron Collider experiments conducted more than two decades ago.

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Published In

Nature Physics

DOI

EISSN

1745-2481

ISSN

1745-2473

Publication Date

July 1, 2021

Volume

17

Issue

7

Start / End Page

819 / 825

Related Subject Headings

  • Fluids & Plasmas
  • 51 Physical sciences
  • 49 Mathematical sciences
  • 02 Physical Sciences
  • 01 Mathematical Sciences
 

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Aad, G., Abbott, B., Abbott, D. C., Abud, A. A., Abeling, K., Abhayasinghe, D. K., … Arcangeletti, C. (2021). Search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in Z-boson decays with the ATLAS detector. Nature Physics, 17(7), 819–825. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01225-z
Aad, G., B. Abbott, D. C. Abbott, A. A. Abud, K. Abeling, D. K. Abhayasinghe, S. H. Abidi, et al. “Search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in Z-boson decays with the ATLAS detector.” Nature Physics 17, no. 7 (July 1, 2021): 819–25. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01225-z.
Aad G, Abbott B, Abbott DC, Abud AA, Abeling K, Abhayasinghe DK, et al. Search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in Z-boson decays with the ATLAS detector. Nature Physics. 2021 Jul 1;17(7):819–25.
Aad, G., et al. “Search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in Z-boson decays with the ATLAS detector.” Nature Physics, vol. 17, no. 7, July 2021, pp. 819–25. Scopus, doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01225-z.
Aad G, Abbott B, Abbott DC, Abud AA, Abeling K, Abhayasinghe DK, Abidi SH, Zeid OSA, Abraham NL, Abramowicz H, Abreu H, Abulaiti Y, Acharya BS, Achkar B, Adam L, Bourdarios CA, Adamczyk L, Adamek L, Adelman J, Adiguzel A, Adorni S, Adye T, Affolder AA, Afik Y, Agapopoulou C, Agaras MN, Aggarwal A, Agheorghiesei C, Aguilar-Saavedra JA, Ahmad A, Ahmadov F, Ahmed WS, Ai X, Aielli G, Akatsuka S, Akbiyik M, Åkesson TPA, Akilli E, Akimov AV, Khoury KA, Alberghi GL, Albert J, Verzini MJA, Alderweireldt S, Aleksa M, Aleksandrov IN, Alexa C, Alexopoulos T, Alfonsi A, Alfonsi F, Alhroob M, Ali B, Ali S, Aliev M, Alimonti G, Allaire C, Allbrooke BMM, Allen BW, Allport PP, Aloisio A, Alonso F, Alpigiani C, Camelia EA, Estevez MA, Alviggi MG, Coutinho YA, Ambler A, Ambroz L, Amelung C, Amidei D, Dos Santos SPA, Amoroso S, Amrouche CS, An F, Anastopoulos C, Andari N, Andeen T, Anders JK, Andrean SY, Andreazza A, Andrei V, Anelli CR, Angelidakis S, Angerami A, Anisenkov AV, Annovi A, Antel C, Anthony MT, Antipov E, Antonelli M, Antrim DJA, Anulli F, Aoki M, Pozo JAA, Aparo MA, Bella LA, Aranzabal N, Ferraz VA, Pereira RA, Arcangeletti C. Search for charged-lepton-flavour violation in Z-boson decays with the ATLAS detector. Nature Physics. 2021 Jul 1;17(7):819–825.

Published In

Nature Physics

DOI

EISSN

1745-2481

ISSN

1745-2473

Publication Date

July 1, 2021

Volume

17

Issue

7

Start / End Page

819 / 825

Related Subject Headings

  • Fluids & Plasmas
  • 51 Physical sciences
  • 49 Mathematical sciences
  • 02 Physical Sciences
  • 01 Mathematical Sciences