Can a Nonstandard Invisible Pair Mimic the Michel Distribution?
Abstract
We ask whether a measured Michel distribution, apparently in excellent agreement with the Standard Model interpretation of the decay, could instead arise from a different invisible sector. Within a general low-energy effective field theory, we analyze lepton decays for electrically neutral, color-singlet, mutually conjugate invisible pairs of spin up to , allowing (pseudo)scalar, (axial)vector, and antisymmetric tensor interactions in the lepton current, focusing on the massless limit relevant for exact degeneracies. We formulate a criterion for indistinguishability based on the full set of measurable differential distributions. Under these assumptions, besides the obvious spin case, there is a unique nontrivial solution: a massless complex scalar pair coupled through a purely left-handed vector current exactly reproduces the standard Michel pattern, including its extensions to daughter-lepton polarization and radiative channels. All other cases studied here are distinguishable, in particular because higher-spin invisible pairs produce additional kinematic prefactors. These results isolate the only nonstandard and nontrivial invisible sector that can remain hidden in Michel-type lepton decay measurements.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.09140,
title = {Can a Nonstandard Invisible Pair Mimic the Michel Distribution?},
author = {Pablo Roig},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.09140},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
5 pages