Status of the Mu2e experiment

Abstract

The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab searches for the charged-lepton flavor violating neutrino-less conversion of a negative muon into an electron in the field of an aluminum nucleus. The dynamics of such a process is well modelled by a two-body decay, resulting in a mono-energetic electron with an energy slightly below the muon rest mass. If no events are observed, in three years of running Mu2e will improve the current limit by four orders of magnitude. Such a charged lepton flavor-violating reaction probes new physics at a scale inaccessible with direct searches at either present or planned high energy colliders. The experiment both complements and extends the current search for muon decay to electron-photon at MEG and searches for new physics at the LHC. This paper focuses on the physics motivation, the design and the status of the experiment.