Isotope dependence of muon-to-electron conversion

Abstract

The lepton-flavor-violating conversion of a muon into an electron in the field of a nucleus is one of the most sensitive probes of physics beyond the Standard Model and the experiments Mu2e, COMET, and DeeMe will explore uncharted terrain in the near future. An observation of this ${\mu }^{-}\to e^{-}$ conversion process opens up the possibility to distinguish the underlying operator or new-physics model by exploiting the target-nucleus dependence of the conversion rate. To facilitate the choice of optimal targets we provide ${\mu }^{-}\to e^{-}$ conversion rates for all stable isotopes and estimate nuclear-structure uncertainties. Our results enable studies of mixed or enriched target materials that are particularly promising for distinguishing scenarios in which the muon converts either on protons or neutrons.

arXiv comment13 pages, matches NPB version; table included as ancillary file

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Nuclear-level Effective Theory of $\mu \to e$ Conversion: Formalism and Applications
• Effective theory tower for $\mu \to e$ conversion
• Indirect constraints on lepton-flavour-violating quarkonium decays
• Lepton Flavour Violation in minimal grand-unified type II seesaw models
• Lepton pair production in muon-nucleus scattering
• Zee-model predictions for lepton flavor violation
• Distinguishing charged lepton flavor violation scenarios with inelastic $\mu \to e$ conversion
• Leptonic probes of Alternative Left-Right Symmetric Models