Search for lepton-flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson in the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>μ</mml:mi><mml:mi>τ</mml:mi></mml:math> and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>e</mml:mi><mml:mi>τ</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math> final states in proton-proton collisions at <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:msqrt><mml:mi>s</mml:mi></mml:msqrt><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>13</mml:mn><mml:mtext> </mml:mtext><mml:mtext> </mml:mtext><mml:mi>TeV</mml:mi></mml:math>
A. M. Sirunyan, A. Tumasyan, W. Adam, J. W. Andrejkovic, T. Bergauer, S. Chatterjee, M. Dragicevic, A. Escalante Del Valle, R. Frühwirth, M. Jeitler, N. Krammer, L. Lechner, D. Liko, I. Mikulec, P. Paulitsch, F. M. Pitters, J. Schieck, R. Schöfbeck, M. Spanring, S. Templ, W. Waltenberger, C.-E. Wulz, V. Chekhovsky, A. Litomin, V. Makarenko, M. R. Darwish, E. A. De Wolf, X. Janssen, T. Kello, A. Lelek, H. Rejeb Sfar, P. Van Mechelen, S. Van Putte, N. Van Remortel, F. Blekman, E. S. Bols, J. D’Hondt, J. De Clercq, M. Delcourt, H. El Faham, S. Lowette, S. Moortgat, A. Morton, D. Müller, A. R. Sahasransu, S. Tavernier, W. Van Doninck, P. Van Mulders, D. Beghin, B. Bilin, B. Clerbaux, G. De Lentdecker, L. Favart, A. Grebenyuk, A. K. Kalsi, K. Lee, M. Mahdavikhorrami, I. Makarenko, L. Moureaux, L. Pétré, A. Popov, N. Postiau, E. Starling, L. Thomas, M. Vanden Bemden, C. Vander Velde, P. Vanlaer, D. Vannerom, L. Wezenbeek, T. Cornelis, D. Dobur, J. Knolle, L. Lambrecht, G. Mestdach, M. Niedziela, C. Roskas, A. Samalan, K. Skovpen, T. T. Tran, M. Tytgat, W. Verbeke, B. Vermassen, M. Vit, A. Bethani, G. Bruno, F. Bury, C. Caputo, P. David, C. Delaere, I. S. Donertas, A. Giammanco, K. Jaffel, V. Lemaitre, K. Mondal, Jessica Prisciandaro, A. Taliercio, M. Teklishyn, P. Vischia, S. Wertz, S. Wuyckens
Abstract
A search is presented for lepton-flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson to $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\tau}$ and $e\ensuremath{\tau}$. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $137\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{fb}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ collected at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess has been found, and the results are interpreted in terms of upper limits on lepton-flavor violating branching fractions of the Higgs boson. The observed (expected) upper limits on the branching fractions are, respectively, $\mathcal{B}(H\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\tau})<0.15(0.15)%$ and $\mathcal{B}(H\ensuremath{\rightarrow}e\ensuremath{\tau})<0.22(0.16)%$ at 95% confidence level.