English

Status of the $B\to K^*\mu^+\mu^-$ anomaly after Moriond 2017

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2017-06-28 v3 High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

Motivated by recent results by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations on the angular distribution of the BKμ+μB \to K^* \mu^+\mu^- decay, we perform a state-of-the-art analysis of rare BB meson decays based on the bsμμb \to s \mu \mu transition. Using standard estimates of hadronic uncertainties, we confirm the presence of a sizable discrepancy between data and SM predictions. We do not find evidence for a q2q^2 or helicity dependence of the discrepancy. The data can be consistently described by new physics in the form of a four-fermion contact interaction (sˉγαPLb)(μˉγαμ)(\bar s \gamma_\alpha P_L b)(\bar \mu \gamma^\alpha \mu). Assuming that the new physics affects decays with muons but not with electrons, we make predictions for a variety of theoretically clean observables sensitive to violation of lepton flavour universality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1703.09189,
  title  = {Status of the $B\to K^*\mu^+\mu^-$ anomaly after Moriond 2017},
  author = {Wolfgang Altmannshofer and Christoph Niehoff and Peter Stangl and David M. Straub},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.09189},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

20 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. v3: numerics updated using v2 of arXiv:1606.04731. Conclusions unchanged. Matches published version. Example script available at https://github.com/DavidMStraub/paper-bkstarmumu-anss