Search for Neutrinoless tau Decays Involving the K_S^0 Meson

Abstract

We have searched for lepton flavor violating decays of the tau lepton with one or two KS0 mesons in the final state. The data used in the search were collected with the CLEO II and II.V detectors at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 13.9 fb^-1 at the Upsilon(4S) resonance. No evidence for signals were found, therefore we have set 90% confidence level (C.L.) upper limits on the branching fractions B(tau -> e KS0) < 9.1e-7, B(tau -> mu KS0) < 9.5e-7, B(tau -> e 2KS0) < 2.2e-6, and B(tau -> mu 2KS0) < 3.4e-6. These represent significantly improved upper limits on the two-body decays and first upper limits on the three-body decays.