Correlating lepton flavour violating $b \to s$ and leptonic decay modes in a minimal abelian extension of the Standard Model

Abstract

We consider an abelian extension of the Standard Model (SM) comprising a new gauge group $U(1)^\prime$, with the neutral gauge boson $Z^\prime$ having flavour violating couplings to quarks and leptons. The fermion content is the same as in SM except for the addition of three right-handed neutrinos. The model, proposed in \cite{Aebischer:2019blw}, describes the couplings of $Z^\prime$ to fermions in terms of three rational parameters $\epsilon_{1,2,3}$ that sum to zero imposing the cancellation of the gauge anomalies. Each $\epsilon_i$ is common to all fermions in a generation, a feature producing correlations among quark and lepton observables. We focus on $b \to s \ell_1^- \ell_2^+$ transitions for the lepton flavour conserving $\ell_1=\ell_2$ and lepton flavour violating case $\ell_1 \neq \ell_2$. Small deviations with respect to the SM predictions are found in the first case, which reflects a feature of the model where quark and lepton sectors prevent each other to manifest large discrepancies with respect to SM. We investigate the correlations between rare $B$ and $B_s$ decays and the leptonic processes $\tau^- \to \mu^- \mu^+ \mu^-$, $\mu^- \to e^- \gamma$, $\mu^- \to e^- e^+ e^-$ and the $ \mu^- \to e^-$ conversion in nuclei. We show that the current experimental upper bounds on these four channels play an increasingly important role in constraining the branching fractions of lepton flavour violating $B$ and $B_s$ decays. While the present bound on $\tau^- \to \mu^- \mu^+ \mu^-$ does not impose significant restrictions, the other three modes set progressively more stringent limits, an important information for the planned new experimental facilities.