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Constraining lepton flavor violating SMEFT 2q2ℓ operators from low-energy charged lepton flavor-violating processes

Utpal Chattopadhyay1,*, Debottam Das2,3,†, Rahul Puri2,3,‡, and Joydeep Roy1,4,§

  • *Contact author: tpuc@iacs.res.in
  • †Contact author: debottam@iopb.res.in
  • ‡Contact author: rahul.puri@iopb.res.in
  • §Contact author: joydeeproy@acharya.ac.in, joyroy.phy@gmail.com

Phys. Rev. D 112, 115042 – Published 29 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rqmt-mjcy

Abstract

Charged lepton flavor-violating (cLFV) processes, which are definite proof of new physics beyond the Standard Model, have remained experimentally elusive to date. Effective field theory (EFT) has been very useful in providing information about such new physics through the higher-dimensional operators. These operators respect SM gauge invariance, and they are suppressed by appropriate powers of the energy scale Λ. In regard to lepton flavour violating (LFV) processes, the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT) is shown to be a useful tool for estimating any new physics effect at the scale Λ. It is worth noting that a large class of cLFV processes involves both quarks and leptons. Thus, low-energy observables play a significant role in providing bounds on lepton-flavor-violating 2-quark-2-lepton (2q2ℓ) operators. In this work, we explore several low-energy cLFV processes that can be addressed within the SMEFT framework, relating them to the specific operators of relevance. Keeping in mind the correlation that exists among the SMEFT operators, we want to extract the strongest constraints on these 2q2ℓ operators.

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