The Standard Model of particle physics currently provides our best description of fundamental particles and their interactions. The theory predicts that the different charged leptons, the electron, muon and tau, have identical electroweak interaction strengths. Previous measurements have shown a wide range of particle decays are consistent with this principle of lepton universality. This article presents evidence for the breaking of lepton universality in beauty-quark decays, with a significance of 3.1 standard deviations, based on proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are of processes in which a beauty meson transforms into a strange meson with the emission of either an electron and a positron, or a muon and an antimuon. If confirmed by future measurements, this violation of lepton universality would imply physics beyond the Standard Model, such as a new fundamental interaction between quarks and leptons.
Likelihood function from the fit to the nonresonant $B^+$ --> $K^+\ell^+ \ell^−$ candidates profiled as a function of $R_K$.
A test of lepton universality, performed by measuring the ratio of the branching fractions of the $B^{0} \rightarrow K^{*0}\mu^{+}\mu^{-}$ and $B^{0} \rightarrow K^{*0}e^{+}e^{-}$ decays, $R_{K^{*0}}$, is presented. The $K^{*0}$ meson is reconstructed in the final state $K^{+}\pi^{-}$, which is required to have an invariant mass within 100$\mathrm{\,MeV}c^2$ of the known $K^{*}(892)^{0}$ mass. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 3$\mathrm{\,fb}^{-1}$, collected by the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8$\mathrm{\,TeV}$. The ratio is measured in two regions of the dilepton invariant mass squared, $q^{2}$, to be \begin{eqnarray*} R_{K^{*0}} = \begin{cases} 0.66~^{+~0.11}_{-~0.07}\mathrm{\,(stat)} \pm 0.03\mathrm{\,(syst)} & \textrm{for } 0.045 < q^{2} < 1.1~\mathrm{\,GeV^2}c^4 \, , \\ 0.69~^{+~0.11}_{-~0.07}\mathrm{\,(stat)} \pm 0.05\mathrm{\,(syst)} & \textrm{for } 1.1\phantom{00} < q^{2} < 6.0~\mathrm{\,GeV^2}c^4 \, . \end{cases} \end{eqnarray*} The corresponding 95.4\% confidence level intervals are $[0.52, 0.89]$ and $[0.53, 0.94]$. The results, which represent the most precise measurements of $R_{K^{*0}}$ to date, are compatible with the Standard Model expectations at the level of 2.1--2.3 and 2.4--2.5 standard deviations in the two $q^{2}$ regions, respectively.
Distributions of the $R(K^{*0})$ delta log-likelihood, $-(\ln L - \ln L_{best})$, for the three trigger categories combined in the low-q2 bin ($0.045 < q^2 < 1.1$ GeV$^{2}/c^4$).
Distributions of the $R(K^{*0})$ delta log-likelihood, $-(\ln L - \ln L_{best})$, for the three trigger categories combined in the central-q2 bin ($1.1 < q^2 < 6.0$ GeV$^{2}/c^4$).
The differential cross-section as a function of rapidity has been measured for the exclusive production of $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2S)$ mesons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV, using data collected by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 930 pb$^{-1}$. The cross-sections times branching fractions to two muons having pseudorapidities between 2.0 and 4.5 are measured to be $$\begin{array}{rl} \sigma_{pp\rightarrow J/\psi\rightarrow{\mu^+}{\mu^-}}(2.0<\eta_{\mu^\pm }<4.5)=&291\pm 7\pm19 {\rm \ pb},\\ \sigma_{pp\rightarrow\psi(2S)\rightarrow{\mu^+}{\mu^-}}(2.0<\eta_{\mu^\pm}<4.5)=&6.5\pm 0.9\pm 0.4 {\rm \ pb},\end{array}$$ where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The measurements agree with next-to-leading order QCD predictions as well as with models that include saturation effects.
Cross section times branching ratio to two muons with pseudorapidities between 2.0 and 4.5.
Cross-section measurements for $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2s)$ decaying into two muons (pb) as a function of rapidity. The tabulated errors are the uncorrelated statistical uncertainties.
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