Search for $e\toτ$ Charged Lepton Flavor Violation at the EIC with the ECCE Detector

The recently approved Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will provide a unique new opportunity for searches of charged lepton flavor violation (CLFV) and other new physics scenarios. In contrast to the $e \leftrightarrow μ$ CLFV transition for which very stringent limits exist, there is still a relatively large discovery space for the $e \to τ$ CLFV transition, potentially to be explored by the EIC. With the latest detector design of ECCE (EIC Comprehensive Chromodynamics Experiment) and projected integral luminosity of the EIC, we find the $τ$-leptons created in the DIS process $ep\to τX$ are expected to be identified with high efficiency. A first ECCE simulation study, restricted to the 3-prong $τ$-decay mode and with limited statistics for the Standard Model backgrounds, estimates that the EIC will be able to improve the current exclusion limit on $e\to τ$ CLFV by an order of magnitude.
11 pages, 8 figures, to be submitted to NIM