Hint of a new scalar interaction in LHCb data?
Abstract We explain recent LHCb measurements of the lepton universality ratios, $$R_{D^{(*)}}^{\tau /\ell }\equiv \frac{\mathcal {B}(\bar{B} \rightarrow D^{(*)+} \tau ^- \bar{\nu }_\tau )}{\mathcal {B}(\bar{B} \rightarrow D^{(*)+}\ell ^- \bar{\nu }_\ell )}$$ R D ( ∗ ) τ / ℓ ≡ B ( B ¯ → D ( ∗ ) + τ - ν ¯ τ ) B ( B ¯ → D ( ∗ ) + ℓ - ν ¯ ℓ ) and $${R(\Lambda _c^+)}^{\tau /\ell } \equiv \frac{\mathcal {B}(\Lambda _b \rightarrow \Lambda _c^+ \tau ^- \bar{\nu }_{\tau })}{\mathcal {B}(\Lambda _b \rightarrow \Lambda _c^+ \ell ^- \bar{\nu }_{\ell })}$$ R ( Λ c + ) τ / ℓ ≡ B ( Λ b → Λ c + τ - ν ¯ τ ) B ( Λ b → Λ c + ℓ - ν ¯ ℓ ) with $$\ell =\mu $$ ℓ = μ , via new physics that affects $$R_D^{\tau /\ell }$$ R D τ / ℓ and $$R(\Lambda _c^+)^{\tau /\ell }$$ R ( Λ c + ) τ / ℓ but not $$R_{D^*}^{\tau /\ell }$$ R D ∗ τ / ℓ . The scalar operator in the effective theory for new physics is indicated. We find that the forward-backward asymmetry and $$\tau $$ τ polarization in $$\bar{B} \rightarrow D^+ \tau ^{-} \bar{\nu }_{\tau }$$ B ¯ → D + τ - ν ¯ τ and $$\Lambda _b \rightarrow \Lambda _c^+ \tau ^- \bar{\nu }_{\tau }$$ Λ b → Λ c + τ - ν ¯ τ decays are significantly affected by the scalar interaction. We construct a simple two Higgs doublet model as a realization of our scenario and consider lepton universality in semileptonic charm and top decays, radiative B decay, B -mixing, and $$Z \rightarrow b \bar{b}$$ Z → b b ¯ .