Caterina Doglioni
Affiliated
Test of the universality of τ and μ lepton couplings in W-boson decays with the ATLAS detector
Author
Summary, in English
The standard model of particle physics encapsulates our best current understanding of physics at the smallest scales. A fundamental axiom of this theory is the universality of the couplings of the different generations of leptons to the electroweak gauge bosons. The measurement of the ratio of the decay rate of W bosons to τ leptons and muons, R(τ/μ), constitutes an important test of this axiom. Using 139 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, we report a measurement of this quantity from di-leptonic tt¯ events where the top quarks decay into a W boson and a bottom quark. We can distinguish muons originating from W bosons and those originating from an intermediate τ lepton through the muon transverse impact parameter and differences in the muon transverse momentum spectra. The measured value of R(τ/μ) is 0.992 ± 0.013 [± 0.007(stat) ± 0.011(syst)] and is in agreement with the hypothesis of universal lepton couplings as postulated in the standard model. This is the only such measurement from the Large Hadron Collider, so far, and obtains twice the precision of previous measurements.
Department/s
- Particle and nuclear physics
- eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
Publishing year
2021
Language
English
Pages
813-818
Publication/Series
Nature Physics
Volume
17
Issue
7
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Topic
- Subatomic Physics
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1745-2473