Search for the Decay B{sup +}{yields}K{sup +}{tau}{sup {+-}}{mu}{sup {+-}}

Journal Article · Fri Nov 16 04:00:00 EST 2007 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.99.201801· OSTI ID:21024464

Aubert, B; Bona, M; Boutigny, D; Karyotakis, Y; Lees, J P; Poireau, V; Prudent, X; Tisserand, V; Zghiche, A ^[1]; Garra Tico, J; Grauges, E ^[2]; Lopez, L; Palano, A; Pappagallo, M ^[3]; Eigen, G; Stugu, B; Sun, L ^[4]; Abrams, G S; Battaglia, M; Brown, D N ^[5]

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1. Laboratoire de Physique des Particules, IN2P3/CNRS et Universite de Savoie, F-74941 Annecy-Le-Vieux (France)
2. Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Fisica, Departament ECM, E-08028 Barcelona (Spain)
3. Universita di Bari, Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN, I-70126 Bari (Italy)
4. University of Bergen, Institute of Physics, N-5007 Bergen (Norway)
5. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

We present a search for the lepton flavor violating decay B{sup +}{yields}K{sup +}{tau}{sup {+-}}{mu}{sup {+-}} using 383x10{sup 6} BB events collected by the BABAR experiment. The branching fraction for this decay can be substantially enhanced in new physics models. The kinematics of the tau from the signal B decay are inferred from the K{sup +}, {mu}, and other B in the event, which is fully reconstructed in one of a variety of hadronic decay modes, allowing the signal B candidate to be fully reconstructed. We observe no excess of events over the expected background and set a limit of B(B{sup +}{yields}K{sup +}{tau}{mu})<7.7x10{sup -5} at 90% confidence level, where the branching fraction is for the sum of the K{sup +}{tau}{sup -}{mu}{sup +} and K{sup +}{tau}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} final states. We use this result to improve a model-independent bound on the energy scale of flavor-changing new physics.

• OSTI ID: 21024464
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 20 Vol. 99; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
B PLUS MESONS
BRANCHING RATIO
FLAVOR MODEL
HADRONIC PARTICLE DECAY
KAONS PLUS
MUONS MINUS
MUONS PLUS
SEMILEPTONIC DECAY
SIGNALS
TAU PARTICLES
UNIFIED GAUGE MODELS