Search for the Lepton-Flavor Violating Decays Upsilon(3S) -> e tau and Upsilon(3S) -> mu tau

Abstract

Charged lepton-flavor violating processes are extremely rare in the Standard Model, but they may occur in several beyond-the-Standard Model theories, including Supersymmetry or models with leptoquarks or compositeness. We present a search for such processes in a sample of 117M Upsilon(3S) decays recorded with the BaBar detector. We place upper limits on the branching fractions BF(Upsilon(3S) -> e tau) < 5.0e-6 and BF(Upilon(3S) -> mu tau) < 4.1e-6 at 90% confidence level. These results are used to place lower limits on the mass scale of beyond-the-Standard Model physics contributing to lepton-flavor violating decays of the Upsilon(3S).