IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v546y2017i7657d10.1038_nature22346.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A challenge to lepton universality in B-meson decays

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory Ciezarek

    (Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics)

  • Manuel Franco Sevilla

    (University of California at Santa Barbara)

  • Brian Hamilton

    (University of Maryland)

  • Robert Kowalewski

    (University of Victoria)

  • Thomas Kuhr

    (Ludwig Maximilians University)

  • Vera Lüth

    (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

  • Yutaro Sato

    (Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute, Nagoya University)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory Ciezarek & Manuel Franco Sevilla & Brian Hamilton & Robert Kowalewski & Thomas Kuhr & Vera Lüth & Yutaro Sato, 2017. "A challenge to lepton universality in B-meson decays," Nature, Nature, vol. 546(7657), pages 227-233, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:546:y:2017:i:7657:d:10.1038_nature22346
    DOI: 10.1038/nature22346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22346
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature22346?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:546:y:2017:i:7657:d:10.1038_nature22346. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.