Confronting lepton flavor universality violation in B decays with high- p T tau lepton searches at LHC
Abstract We confront the indications of lepton flavor universality (LFU) violation observed in semi-tauonic B meson decays with new physics (NP) searches using high p T tau leptons at the LHC. Using effective field theory arguments we correlate possible non-standard contributions to semi-tauonic charged currents with the τ + τ − signature at high energy hadron colliders. Several representative standard model extensions put forward to explain the anomaly are examined in detail: (i) weak triplet of color-neutral vector resonances, (ii) second Higgs doublet and (iii) scalar or (iv) vector leptoquark. We find that, in general, τ + τ − searches pose a serious challenge to NP explanations of the LFU anomaly. Recasting existing 8 TeV and 13 TeV LHC analyses, stringent limits are set on all considered simplified models. Future projections of the τ + τ − constraints as well as caveats in interpreting them within more elaborate models are also discussed.