Improved limits on lepton-flavor-violating τ decays to ℓ, ρ, K*, and K̄*

We search for the neutrinoless, lepton-flavor-violating tau decays τ-→l-V^0, where l is an electron or muon and V^0 is a vector mesonreconstructed as ϕ→K^+K^-, ρ→π^+π^-, K^*→K^+π^-, K ^*→K^-π^+. The analysis has been performed using 451  fb^(-1) of data collected at an e+e- center-of- massenergy near 10.58 GeV with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage rings. The number of events found in the data is compatible with the background expectation, and upper limits on the branching fractionsare set in the range (2.6–19)×10^(-8) at the 90% confidence level.