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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Lepton flavor violation in photon-induced electron-muon pairs at the HL-LHC

M. A. Arroyo-Ureña1,2,*, O. Félix-Beltrán3,†, J. Hernández-Sánchez3,‡, C. G. Honorato3,§, and S. Rosado-Navarro1,2,∥

  • *Contact author: marco.arroyo@fcfm.buap.mx
  • †Contact author: olga.felix@correo.buap.mx
  • ‡Contact author: jaime.hernandez@correo.buap.mx
  • §Contact author: carlosg.honorato@correo.buap.mx
  • ∥Contact author: sebastian.rosado@protonmail.com
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Phys. Rev. D 112, L111701 – Published 9 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bfyd-nwm1

Abstract

We show the outstanding potential of the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) to discover charged lepton flavor violation (cLFV) via the ultraperipheral process γγ→e±μ∓. Using a gauge-invariant effective field theory framework—consistent with the most stringent bounds from radiative decays—we perform a full Monte Carlo analysis with multivariate techniques. Our results show that a 5σ discovery is achievable with an integrated luminosity of Lint≳2700  fb−1 for favorable benchmark scenarios. This study establishes photon fusion at the HL-LHC as a powerful probe of cLFV, strongly motivating dedicated searches by the experimental collaborations.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, L111701– Published 9 December, 2025
  • Received 24 September 2025
  • Accepted 14 November 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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