Description
The Mu3e experiment will search for the lepton flavor violating neutrinoless
muon decay $\mu^+ \rightarrow e^+ e^- e^+$ with a sensitivity of $10^{-16}$,
a four order of magnitude improvement over previous experiments, using the
world most intense muon beam at the Paul Scherrer Institute. This decay is
strongly suppressed in the Standard Model, whilst several BSM models predict
observable effects accessible to the new generation of LFV experiments.
The search for the $\mu^+ \rightarrow e^+ e^- e^+$ decay requires a large
acceptance detector capable of coping with rates of up to $2 \times10^9$
stopped muons per second with excellent momentum, spacial, and time resolution
to suppress backgrounds to below the $10^16$ level. The required Mu3e detector
performance is possible thanks to tracking detectors based on thin monolithic
active silicon pixel sensors (HV-MAPS) in conjunction with an innovative
tracking concept and very precise timing measurements using scintillating
fibers and tiles coupled to silicon photo-multipliers. The recently approved
Mu3e experiment is currently preparing for detector construction.
In this seminar I will briefly discuss the phenomenology of lepton flavor
violation and the various models suggesting sizable LFV effects accessible
to the next generation of muon experiments. I will overview the status of
current LFV searches. Then I'll discuss in detail the principle and conceptual
design of the Mu3e experiment and the experimental challenges associated with
this search. Finally I will illustrate the various detector components and
their expected performance.