Polarized and un-polarized $\mathcal{R}_{K^*}$ in and beyond the SM

TL;DR

This paper investigates the polarization-dependent lepton flavor universality ratios in B meson decays involving $K^*$, aiming to identify observables sensitive to new physics beyond the Standard Model, especially in tau to muon transitions.

Contribution

It introduces polarization-sensitive observables in $B o K^* au o au$ decays to distinguish different new physics models beyond the Standard Model.

Findings

Most observables are within current experimental sensitivity.

Polarization of $K^*$ can help discriminate between NP models.

Study provides guidance for ongoing and future experiments.

Abstract

The Standard Model (SM) is lepton flavor universal, and the recent measurements of lepton flavor universality in $B \to (K,K^*)\ell^{+}\ell^{-}$, for $\ell = \mu, \; e$, decays now lie close to the SM predictions. However, this is not the case for the $\tau$ to $\mu$ ratios in these decays, where there is still some window open for the new physics (NP), and to accommodate them various extensions to the SM are proposed. It will be interesting to identify some observables which are not only sensitive on the parametric space of such NP models but also have some discriminatory power. We find that the polarization of the $K^{*}$ may play an important role, therefore, we have computed the unpolarized and polarized lepton flavor universality ratios of $\tau$ to $\mu$ in $B\to K^{*}\ell^{+}\ell^{+}$, $\ell= \mu, \tau$ decays. The calculation shows that in most of the cases, the values of the various proposed observables fall within the current experimental sensitivity, and their study at some on going and future experiments will serve as a tool to segregate the variants of the NP models.