Modeling of Energy Distributions in Pseudo-Rest Frame Analyses of Two-Body Decays with Missing Particles

Abstract

In this study, we introduce a parametric function designed to describe the energy distribution of the observed particle within the framework of two-body decays involving one undetected particle, analyzed using the pseudo-rest frame approximation. While we illustrate its effectiveness through the specific case study of the Lepton Flavor Violating decay $\tau \rightarrow l+\alpha$, this parametric function is broadly applicable to a wide range of pseudo-rest frame method-related searches involving undetected particles. Remarkably, it requires only a single simulation to account for the smearing effects resulting from the pseudo-rest frame approximation. The uniqueness of this function lies in its dependency on the mass of the undetected particle, enabling continuous exploration of the mass parameter space. We validate the performance of our parametric function using simulated datasets and find that it exhibits comparable performance to traditional simulation-based methods. Notably, our approach offers the distinct advantage of accommodating any mass value for the undetected particle without the need for multiple simulations.