Lepton universality violation from neutral pion decays in $R_{K^{(*)}}$ measurements
Abstract
I show that the neutral pion decay in , with , might generate large sources of lepton flavor universality violation (LFUV) in measurements of the ratios, : If the photons in the final state are reconstructed as Bremsstrahlung, the recovered electron-positron invariant mass can be pushed into the - GeV signal region, artificially enhancing the measured branching ratio compared to . I present a conservative estimate and simulation of the LFUV background at LHCb, that together suggest this effect could reduce the recovered up to several percent. A reliable assessment of the size of this effect will require dedicated simulations within experimental frameworks themselves.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2110.11209,
title = {Lepton universality violation from neutral pion decays in $R_{K^{(*)}}$ measurements},
author = {Dean J. Robinson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.11209},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
6 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; published version; includes estimates for effects of lepton $p_T$ thresholds and magnetic bending power enhancements