In this work we study the lepton flavor violating (LFV) semileptonic $\tau \to \mu f_0(980)$ decay within the context of SUSY-Seesaw Models, where the MSSM spectrum is extended by three right-handed neutrinos and their SUSY partners, and where the seesaw mechanism is used to generate the neutrino masses. We estimate its decay rate when it proceeds via the Higgs-mediated channel $\tau \to \mu H^{*}\to \mu f_0(980)$, where $H$ refers to the $CP$-even MSSM Higgs bosons $h^0$ and $H^0$, and the lepton flavor violating $\tau \mu H$ vertex is radiatively generated via SUSY loops. In order to describe the $f_0(980)$ meson we follow the guidelines from chiral constraints. As an implication of our computation, we explore the sensitivity to the Higgs sector in this decay and compare it with other LFV tau decay channels. The confrontation of our predictions for $\mathrm{BR}(\tau \to \mu f_0(980))$ with its very competitive present experimental bound leads us to extract some interesting restrictions on the most relevant model parameters, particularly, $\tan \beta$ and $m_{H^0}$.

• Received 21 April 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.80.015023