Test of lepton universality in beauty-quark decays



Aaij, R, Beteta, C Abellan, Ackernley, T, Adeva, B, Adinolfi, M, Afsharnia, H, Aidala, CA, Aiola, S, Ajaltouni, Z, Akar, S
et al (show 947 more authors) (2022) Test of lepton universality in beauty-quark decays. NATURE PHYSICS, 18 (3). 277-+.

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Abstract

The Standard Model of particle physics currently provides our best description of fundamental particles and their interactions. The theory predicts that the different charged leptons, the electron, muon and tau, have identical electroweak interaction strengths. Previous measurements have shown a wide range of particle decays are consistent with this principle of lepton universality. This article presents evidence for the breaking of lepton universality in beauty-quark decays, with a significance of 3.1 standard deviations, based on proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are of processes in which a beauty meson transforms into a strange meson with the emission of either an electron and a positron, or a muon and an antimuon. If confirmed by future measurements, this violation of lepton universality would imply physics beyond the Standard Model, such as a new fundamental interaction between quarks and leptons.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2021-004.html (LHCb public pages)
Uncontrolled Keywords: hep-ex, hep-ex
Divisions: Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Physical Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 02 Sep 2021 09:17
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 21:31
DOI: 10.1038/s41567-021-01478-8
Open Access URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-021-01478-8
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3134969