Journal article

Search for lepton number violating decays B →π -μ μ and B →K -μ μ

R Aaij, C Abellan Beteta, B Adeva, M Adinolfi, C Adrover, A Affolder, Z Ajaltouni, J Albrecht, F Alessio, M Alexander, G Alkhazov, P Alvarez Cartelle, AA Alves, S Amato, Y Amhis, J Anderson, RB Appleby, O Aquines Gutierrez, F Archilli, L Arrabito Show all

Physical Review Letters | AMER PHYSICAL SOC | Published : 2012

Open access

Abstract

A search is performed for the lepton number violating decay B +→h -μ +μ +, where h - represents a K - or a π -, using an integrated luminosity of 36pb -1 of data collected with the LHCb detector. The decay is forbidden in the standard model but allowed in models with a Majorana neutrino. No signal is observed in either channel and limits of B(B +→K -μ +μ +)<5. 4×10 -8 and B(B +→π -μ +μ +)<5.8×10 -8 are set at the 95% confidence level. These improve the previous best limits by factors of 40 and 30, respectively. © 2012 CERN, for the LHCb Collaboration. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. Further distribution of this wo..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Science Foundation


Funding Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC. We thank the technical and administrative staff at CERN and at the LHCb institutes, and acknowledge support from the National Agencies: CAPES, CNPq, FAPERJ, and FINEP (Brazil); CERN; NSFC (China); CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, HGF, and MPG (Germany); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); FOM and NWO (The Netherlands); SCSR (Poland); ANCS (Romania); MinES of Russia and Rosatom (Russia); MICINN, XuntaGal and GENCAT (Spain); SNSF and SER (Switzerland); NAS Ukraine (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); NSF (USA). We also acknowledge the support received from the ERC under FP7 and the Region Auvergne.