LHC tau-pair production constraints on $a_{\tau }$ and $d_{\tau }$

Abstract

We point out that relevant constraints on the anomalous magnetic ($a_{\tau }$) and electric ($d_{\tau }$) moment of the tau lepton can be derived from tau-pair production measurements performed at the LHC. Our conclusion is based on the observation that the leading relative deviations from the Standard Model prediction for $pp\to {\tau }^{+}{\tau }^{-}$ due to $a_{\tau }$ and $d_{\tau }$ are enhanced at high energies. Less precise measurements at hadron colliders can therefore offer the same or better sensitivity to new physics with respect to high-precision low-energy measurements performed at lepton machines. We derive bounds on $a_{\tau }$ and $d_{\tau }$ using the full LHC Run II data set on tau-pair production and compare our findings with the current best limits on the tau anomalous moments.

Comments: 11 pages and 2 figures; v2: slightly modified and extended version of the manuscript as published in SciPost