Amplifying muon-to-positron conversion in nuclei with ultralight dark matter

Abstract

We present an analysis of the lepton-number and lepton-flavour-violating process of muon-to-positron conversion ${\mu }^{-}+N\to e^{+}+N^{\prime }$, in the presence of an ultralight scalar dark matter (ULSDM) field which couples to neutrinos. The ULSDM contributes to the effective off-diagonal Majorana mass $m_{\mu e}$, therefore amplifying the rate of muon-to-positron conversion to experimentally observable levels. Using existing bounds from SINDRUM II, COMET, and Mu2e experiments, we derive novel constraints on the flavour-off-diagonal couplings of neutrinos to ULSDM. Our work reveals that upcoming experiments can provide stronger sensitivity to these new couplings than bounds arising from cosmological surveys and terrestrial experiments.

Comments: Invited edition for the special issue of Emerging Leaders 2025 in the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, 8 pages, 3 figures