Search for lepton flavour violating decays of the Higgs boson to mu tau and e tau in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV
BMWFW (Austria) ; FWF (Austria) ; FNRS (Belgium) ; FWO (Belgium) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) ; MES (Bulgaria) ; CERN ; CAS (China) ; MoST (China) ; NSFC (China) ; COLCIENCIAS (Colombia) ; MSES (Croatia) ; CSF (Croatia) ; RPF (Cyprus) ; SENESCYT (Ecuador) ; MoER (Estonia) ; ERC IUT (Estonia) ; ERDF (Estonia) ; Academy of Finland (Finland) ; MEC (Finland) ; HIP (Finland) ; CEA (France) ; CNRS/IN2P3 (France) ; BMBF (Germany) ; DFG (Germany) ; HGF (Germany) ; GSRT (Greece) ; OTKA (Hungary) ; NIH (Hungary) ; DAE (India) ; DST (India) ; IPM (Iran) ; SFI (Ireland) ; INFN (Italy) ; MSIP (Republic of Korea) ; NRF (Republic of Korea) ; LAS (Lithuania) ; MOE (Malaysia) ; UM (Malaysia) ; BUAP (Mexico) ; CINVESTAV (Mexico) ; CONACYT (Mexico) ; LNS (Mexico) ; SEP (Mexico) ; UASLP-FAI (Mexico) ; MBIE (New Zealand) ; PAEC (Pakistan) ; MSHE (Poland) ; NSC (Poland) ; FCT (Portugal) ; JINR (Dubna) ; MON (Russia) ; RosAtom (Russia) ; RAS (Russia) ; RFBR (Russia) ; RAEP (Russia) ; MESTD (Serbia) ; SEIDI (Spain) ; CPAN (Spain) ; PCTI (Spain) ; FEDER (Spain) ; Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland) ; MST (Taipei) ; ThEPCenter (Thailand) ; IPST (Thailand) ; STAR (Thailand) ; NSTDA (Thailand) ; TUBITAK (Turkey) ; TAEK (Turkey) ; NASU (Ukraine) ; SFFR (Ukraine) ; STFC (United Kingdom) ; DOE (U.S.A.) ; NSF (U.S.A.) ; Marie-Curie programme ; European Research Council ; Horizon 2020 Grant ; Leventis Foundation ; A.P. Sloan Foundation ; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation ; Belgian Federal Science Policy Office ; Fonds pour la Formation a la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium) ; Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium) ; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic ; Council of Science and Industrial Research, India ; HOMING PLUS programme of the Foundation for Polish Science - European Union, Regional Development Fund ; Ministry of Science and Higher Education ; National Science Center (Poland) ; National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund ; Programa Severo Ochoa del Principado de Asturias ; Thalis programme - EU-ESF ; Aristeia programme - EU-ESF ; Greek NSRF ; Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University ; Chulalongkorn Academic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand) ; Welch Foundation ; Weston Havens Foundation (U.S.A.) ; Horizon 2020 Grant: 675440 ; National Science Center (Poland): Harmonia 2014/14/M/ST2/00428 ; National Science Center (Poland): Opus 2014/13/B/ST2/02543 ; National Science Center (Poland): 2014/15/B/ST2/03998 ; National Science Center (Poland): 2015/19/B/ST2/02861 ; National Science Center (Poland): Sonata-bis 2012/07/E/ST2/01406 ; Welch Foundation: C-1845 ; A search for lepton flavour violating decays of the Higgs boson in the mu tau and e tau decay modes is presented. The search is based on a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions collected with the CMS detector in 2016, at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess over the standard model expectation is observed. The observed (expected) upper limits on the lepton flavour violating branching fractions of the Higgs boson are B(H -> mu tau) e tau) < 0.61% (0.37%), at 95% confidence level. These results are used to derive upper limits on the off-diagonal mu tau and e tau Yukawa couplings root vertical bar Y-mu tau vertical bar(2) + vertical bar Y-mu tau vertical bar(2) < 1.43 x 10(-3) and root vertical bar Y-e tau vertical bar(2) + vertical bar Y-tau e vertical bar(2) < 2.26 x 10(-3) at 95% confidence level. The limits on the lepton flavour violating branching fractions of the Higgs boson and on the associated Yukawa couplings are the most stringent to date.