Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and Horizon 2020 Grant, contract Nos. 675440, 724704, 752730, 758316, 765710, 824093, 884104, and COST Action CA16108 (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the F.R.S.-FNRS and FWO (Belgium) under the “Excellence of Science — EOS" — be.h project n. 30820817; the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, No. Z191100007219010; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI), Project Number 2288 (Greece); the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), under Germany’s Excellence Strategy — EXC 2121 “Quantum Universe" — 390833306, and under project number 400140256 — GRK2497; the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the New National Excellence Program — ÚNKP, the NKFIH research grants K 124845, K 124850, K 128713, K 128786, K 129058, K 131991, K 133046, K 138136, K 143460, K 143477, 2020-2.2.1-ED-2021-00181, and TKP2021-NKTA-64 (Hungary); the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Latvian Council of Science; the Ministry of Education and Science, project no. 2022/WK/14, and the National Science Center, contracts Opus 2021/41/B/ST2/01369 and 2021/43/B/ST2/01552 (Poland); the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, grant CEECIND/01334/2018 (Portugal); the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, ERDF “a way of making Europe", and the Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia María de Maeztu, grant MDM-2017-0765 and Programa Severo Ochoa del Principado de Asturias (Spain); the Chulalongkorn Academic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project, and the National Science, Research and Innovation Fund via the Program Management Unit for Human Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation, grant B05F650021 (Thailand); the Kavli Foundation; the Nvidia Corporation; the SuperMicro Corporation; the Welch Foundation, contract C-1845; and the Weston Havens Foundation (USA).

A search is reported for heavy resonances and quantum black holes decaying into eµ, eτ, and µτ final states in proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC during 2016–2018 at √s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. The eµ, eτ, and µτ invariant mass spectra are reconstructed, and no evidence is found for physics beyond the standard model. Upper limits are set at 95% confidence level on the product of the cross section and branching fraction for lepton flavor violating signals. Three benchmark signals are studied: resonant τ sneutrino production in R parity violating supersymmetric models, heavy Z0 gauge bosons with lepton flavor violating decays, and nonresonant quantum black hole production in models with extra spatial dimensions. Resonant τ sneutrinos are excluded for masses up to 4.2TeV in the eµ channel, 3.7TeV in the eτ channel, and 3.6TeV in the µτ channel. A Z0 boson with lepton flavor violating couplings is excluded up to a mass of 5.0TeV in the eµ channel, up to 4.3TeV in the eτ channel, and up to 4.1TeV in the µτ channel. Quantum black holes in the benchmark model are excluded up to the threshold mass of 5.6TeV in the eµ channel, 5.2TeV in the eτ channel, and 5.0TeV in the µτ channel. In addition, model-independent limits are extracted to allow comparisons with other models for the same final states and similar event selection requirements. The results of these searches provide the most stringent limits available from collider experiments for heavy particles that undergo lepton flavor violating decays.

CMS Collaboration: et al.

Article funded by SCOAP3.

Peer reviewed