Search for lepton-flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson in the mu tau and e tau final states in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV

A search is presented for lepton-flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson to μτ and eτ. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 137  fb−1 collected at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess has been found, and the results are interpreted in terms of upper limits on lepton-flavor violating branching fractions of the Higgs boson. The observed (expected) upper limits on the branching fractions are, respectively, B(H→μτ)<0.15(0.15)% and B(H→eτ)<0.22(0.16)% at 95% confidence level.