English

Effective theory tower for $\mu\rightarrow e$ conversion

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2024-11-15 v2 High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Theory

Abstract

We present theoretical predictions for μe\mu \rightarrow e conversion rates using a tower of effective field theories connecting the UV to nuclear physics scales. The interactions in nuclei are described using a recently developed nonrelativistic effective theory (NRET) that organizes contributions according to bound nucleon and muon velocities, vN\vec{v}_N and vμ\vec{v}_\mu, with vN>vμ|\vec{v}_N| > |\vec{v}_\mu|. To facilitate the top-down matching, we enlarge the set of Lorentz covariant nucleon-level interactions mapped onto the NRET operators to include those mediated by tensor interactions, in addition to the scalar and vector interactions already considered previously, and then match NRET nonperturbatively onto the Weak Effective Theory (WET). At the scale μ2\mu \approx 2 GeV WET is formulated in terms of uu, dd, ss quarks, gluons and photons as the light degrees of freedom, along with the flavor-violating leptonic current. We retain contributions from WET operators up to dimension 7, which requires the full set of 26 NRET operators. The results are encoded in the open-source Python- and Mathematica-based software suite MuonBridge, which we make available to the theoretical and experimental communities interested in μe\mu \rightarrow e conversion.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.13818,
  title  = {Effective theory tower for $\mu\rightarrow e$ conversion},
  author = {Wick Haxton and Kenneth McElvain and Tony Menzo and Evan Rule and Jure Zupan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.13818},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

60 pages, 7 figures, 7 tables. V2 typos fixed, matches JHEP version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:12:39.296Z