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3  Tests of lepton universality

In the Standard Model, the partial widths of a heavier lepton L decaying to a lighter lepton ℓ are, neglecting neutrino masses and including radiative corrections [84],

     
  Γ(L → νL ℓ 
ν
 (γ)) =
B (L → νL ℓ 
ν
)
τL
 =
GL G mL5
192 π3
  f


m2
mL2



rWL rγL ,
          

where

     
 G
g2
2
 MW2
    
       f(x)= 1 −8x +8x3 −x4 −12x2 lnx  
rWL
= 1 + 
3
5
 
mL2
MW2
    
         rγL
= 1+
α(mL)
 


25
4
−π2


 

We use rγτ=1−43.2· 10−4 and rγµ=1−42.4· 10−4 [84] and MW from PDG 2011 [91] as usual.

Proper ratios of the above partial widths, corrected by the suitable above-illustrated factors to remove the dependencies from masses and radiative corrections, measure ratios of charged weak lepton coupling constants. Using the HFAG-Tau fit values where available and using PDG 2011 for the remaining quantities, we measure, accounting for the statistical correlations emerging from the HFAG-Tau fit:

     
  


gτ
gµ
 


= 1.0006 ± 0.0021 ,
    
 


gτ
ge
 


= 1.0024 ± 0.0021 ,
    
 


gµ
ge
 


= 1.0018 ± 0.0014 .
      

Tau decays partial widths to hadrons compared to the same hadron decay to muons measure the tau-muon universality of charged weak couplings as follows:

     
  


gτ
gµ
 


2



 
 =
B (τ → h ντ)
B (
h → µ 
ν
µ
)
2mh mµ2τh
(1+δh)mτ3ττ



1−mµ2/mh2
1−mh2/mτ2
 


2



 
 ,
          

where h = π or K and the radiative corrections are δπ = (0.16 ± 0.14)% and δK = (0.90 ± 0.22)% [64]. Using the HFAG-Tau data and PDG 2011 we measure:

     
  


gτ
gµ
 


 



π
= 0.9956 ± 0.0031 ,    
 


gτ
gµ
 


 



K
 = 0.9853 ± 0.0072 .
        

Similar tests could be performed with decays to electrons, however they are less precise because the hadron two body decays to electrons are helicity-suppressed. Averaging the three gτ/gµ ratios we obtain

     
  


gτ
gµ
 


 



τ+π+K
= 0.9996 ± 0.0020 ,          

accounting for statistical correlations. Table 8 reports the statistical correlation coefficients for the fitted coupling ratios:


Table 8: Universality coupling ratios correlation coefficients (%)
( gτ/ge )77
( gµ/ge )-3534
( gτ/gµ )π49502
( gτ/gµ )K2321-214
 ( gτ/gµ )( gτ/ge )( gµ/ge )( gτ/gµ )π


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