Search for lepton flavor violating μN→τX reactions with high energy muons

A deep inerastic scattering process μN→τX is discussed to study lepton flavor violation between muons and tau leptons. In supersymmetric models, the Higgs boson mediated diagrams could be important for this reaction. We find that at a muon energy (Eμ) higher than 50 GeV, the predicted cross section significantly increases due to the contribution from sea b-quarks. The number of produced tau leptons can be O(104) at Eμ=300 GeV from 1020 muons, whereas O(102) events are given at Eμ=50 GeV. Another promising possibility to search for the eN→τX reaction at an electron-positron linear collider is also discussed. Searches for these reactions would be competitive with studies of rare tau decays and have potential to improve sensitivities to lepton flavor violation significantly.