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A challenge to lepton universality in B-meson decays

Nature volume 546, pages 227–233 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

One of the key assumptions of the standard model of particle physics is that the interactions of the charged leptons, namely electrons, muons and taus, differ only because of their different masses. Whereas precision tests comparing processes involving electrons and muons have not revealed any definite violation of this assumption, recent studies of B-meson decays involving the higher-mass tau lepton have resulted in observations that challenge lepton universality at the level of four standard deviations. A confirmation of these results would point to new particles or interactions, and could have profound implications for our understanding of particle physics.

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Figure 1: Diagrams for standard-model decay processes.
Figure 2: Belle and LHCb single-event displays illustrating the reconstruction of semileptonic B-meson decays.
Figure 3: Extraction of the yield from Belle data.
Figure 4: Comparison of measurements with standard model predictions.
Figure 5: Extraction of the ratios and by maximum likelihood fits.
Figure 6: and measurements.
Figure 7: Diagrams for non-standard-model decay processes.

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Acknowledgements

We recognize the contributions and dedication of our colleagues in the large international collaborations supporting the operation of the BaBar (M.F.S., R.K., V.L.), Belle (T.K., Y.S.) and LHCb (G.C., B.H.) detectors, the data processing and the data analyses on which the results presented in this Review are based. None of this would have been achieved without the efforts of the teams at SLAC, KEK and CERN who achieved excellent beam conditions and delivered high luminosities of the e+e− and pp storage rings over many years. We acknowledge support from the Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) of the Netherlands, the US National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, the Excellence Cluster of the DFG of Germany: Origin and Structure of the Universe, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gregory Ciezarek

  2. University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, 93106, California, USA

    Manuel Franco Sevilla

  3. University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 20742, USA

    Brian Hamilton

  4. University of Victoria, Victoria, V8P 5C2, British Columbia, Canada

    Robert Kowalewski

  5. Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, 80539, Germany

    Thomas Kuhr

  6. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford, 94309, California, USA

    Vera Lüth

  7. Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8602, Japan

    Yutaro Sato

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Correspondence to Vera Lüth.

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Ciezarek, G., Franco Sevilla, M., Hamilton, B. et al. A challenge to lepton universality in B-meson decays. Nature 546, 227–233 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22346

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