Search for lepton-number- and baryon-number-violating tau decays at Belle
hep-ex
/ Authors
D. Sahoo, G. B. Mohanty, K. Trabelsi, I. Adachi, K. Adamczyk, H. Aihara, S. Al Said, D. M. Asner, T. Aushev, R. Ayad
and 215 more authors
T. Aziz, V. Babu, S. Bahinipati, P. Behera, J. Bennett, M. Bessner, V. Bhardwaj, T. Bilka, J. Biswal, G. Bonvicini, A. Bozek, M. Bračko, T. E. Browder, M. Campajola, L. Cao, D. Červenkov, M. -C. Chang, P. Chang, V. Chekelian, A. Chen, B. G. Cheon, K. Chilikin, H. E. Cho, K. Cho
/ Abstract
We search for lepton-number- and baryon-number-violating decays $τ^{-}\to\overline{p}e^{+}e^{-}$, $pe^{-}e^{-}$, $\overline{p}e^{+}μ^{-}$, $\overline{p}e^{-}μ^{+}$, $\overline{p}μ^{+}μ^{-}$, and $pμ^{-}μ^{-}$ using 921 fb$^{-1}$ of data, equivalent to $(841\pm12)\times 10^6$ $τ^{+}τ^{-}$ events, recorded with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider. In the absence of a signal, $90\%$ confidence-level upper limits are set on the branching fractions of these decays in the range $(1.8$-$4.0)\times 10^{-8}$. We set the world's first limits on the first four channels and improve the existing limits by an order of magnitude for the last two channels.