Search for the lepton-flavour violating decay D 0 → e ± μ ∓
A search for the lepton-flavour violating decay D 0 →e ± μ ∓ is made with a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 fb -1 of proton–proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV, collected by the LHCb experiment. Candidate D 0 mesons are selected using the decay D *+ → D 0 π + and the D 0 →e ± μ ∓ branching fraction is measured using the decay mode D 0 → K - π + as a normalization channel. No significant excess of D 0 →e ± μ ∓ candidates over the expected background is seen, and a limit is set on the branching fraction, B(D 0 →e ± μ ∓ ) < 1.3 × 10 -8 , at 90% confidence level. This is an order of magnitude lower than the previous limit and it further constrains the parameter space in some leptoquark models and in supersymmetric models with R-parity violation.