Searches for lepton flavor violating decays $τ^\pm \to \ell^\pmγ$, $τ^\pm \to \ell^\pm P^0$ (where $\ell^- = e^-, μ^-$, and $P^0$ = $π^0, η, η^{\prime}$) at B-Factories: Status and Combinations

Banerjee, Swagato

Searches for lepton flavor violating decays $τ^\pm \to \ell^\pmγ$, $τ^\pm \to \ell^\pm P^0$ (where $\ell^- = e^-, μ^-$, and $P^0$ = $π^0, η, η^{\prime}$) at B-Factories: Status and Combinations

Authors

Description

The present experimental status of searches for lepton flavor violating decays of the $τ$ lepton to a lighter mass lepton and a photon or a pseudoscalar meson is presented. The results obtained are from $e^+e^-$ annihilation data collected at a center-of-mass energy near 10.58 GeV by the \babar and the Belle detectors. In order to benefit from larger available datasets, the first $\babar-$Belle combinations of upper limits on the branching fractions of lepton flavor violating $τ$-decays are obtained.
6 pages, 4 figures, 1 Table. To appear in the proceedings of 9$^{th}$ International Workshop on Tau-Lepton Physics (Tau06) held at Pisa, Italy, from 19$^{th}$ to 22$^{nd}$ September 2006