A Closer Look at $R_D$ and $R_{D^{\ast }}$

Abstract

The measurement of $R_D$ ($R_{D^{\ast }}$), the ratio of the branching fraction of $\overline{B}\to D\tau {\bar{\nu }}_{\tau }(\overline{B}\to D^{\ast }\tau {\bar{\nu }}_{\tau })$ to that of $\overline{B}\to Dl{\bar{\nu }}_l(\overline{B}\to D^{\ast }l{\bar{\nu }}_l)$, shows $1.9\sigma$ $(3.3\sigma )$ deviation from its Standard Model (SM) prediction. The combined deviation is at the level of $4\sigma$ according to the Heavy Flavour Averaging Group (HFAG). We perform an effective field theory analysis (at the dimension 6 level) of these potential New Physics (NP) signals assuming $SU(3{)}_C\times SU(2{)}_L\times U(1{)}_Y$ gauge invariance. We first show that, in general, $R_D$ and $R_{D^{\ast }}$ are theoretically independent observables and hence, their theoretical predictions are not correlated. We identify the operators that can explain the experimental measurements of $R_D$ and $R_{D^{\ast }}$ individually and also together. Motivated by the recent measurement of the $\tau$ polarisation in $\overline{B}\to D^{\ast }\tau {\bar{\nu }}_{\tau }$ decay, $P_{\tau }^{D^{\ast }}$ by the {\sc Belle} collaboration, we study the impact of a more precise measurement of $P_{\tau }^{D^{\ast }}$ (and a measurement of $P_{\tau }^D$) on the various possible NP explanations. Furthermore, we show that the measurement of $R_{D^{\ast }}$ in bins of $q^2$, the square of the invariant mass of the lepton neutrino system, along with the information on $\tau$ polarisation, can completely distinguish the various operator structures.

Comments: 6 pages, 7 figures; Talk presented at the CKM2016, to appear in Proceedings for the 9th International Workshop on the CKM Unitarity Triangle