On flavourful Easter eggs for New Physics hunger and lepton flavour universality violation

• Main Authors: Marco Ciuchini, António M. Coutinho, Marco Fedele, Enrico Franco, Ayan Paul, Luca Silvestrini, Mauro Valli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2017-10-01
• Series: European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5270-2
• ISSN: 1434-6044; 1434-6052

Abstract Within the standard approach of effective field theory of weak interactions for $$\varDelta B = 1$$ ΔB=1 transitions, we look for possibly unexpected subtle New Physics effects, here dubbed “flavourful Easter eggs”. We perform a Bayesian global fit using the publicly available HEPfit package, taking into account state-of-the-art experimental information concerning these processes, including the suggestive measurements from LHCb of $$R_{K}$$ RK and $$R_{K^{*}}$$ RK∗ , the latter available only very recently. We parametrise New Physics contributions to $$b \rightarrow s$$ b→s transitions in terms of shifts of Wilson coefficients of the electromagnetic dipole and semileptonic operators, assuming CP-conserving effects, but allowing in general for violation of lepton flavour universality. We show how optimistic/conservative hadronic estimates can impact quantitatively the size of New Physics extracted from the fit. With a conservative approach to hadronic uncertainties we find nonzero New Physics contributions to Wilson coefficients at the level of $$\sim 3\sigma $$ ∼3σ , depending on the model chosen. Furthermore, given the interplay between hadronic contributions and New Physics effects in the leptonic vector current, a scenario with nonstandard leptonic axial currents is comparable to the more widely advocated one with New Physics in the leptonic vector current.