  A study of mu-tau conversion via the deep inelastic scattering process \mu N
-> \tau X, with N a nucleon, is performed taking into account the effects from
both spin-0 and spin-1 unparticles with lepton flavor violating (LFV)
couplings. This process has attracted attention in the past as it may be at the
reach of a future neutrino or muon factory. For the model parameters, we use
the most recent constraints on the unparticle LFV couplings from the
experimental limits on the muon anomalous magnetic moment and the LFV decay
\tau-> 3\mu, whereas for the unparticle scale \Lambda_U and scale dimension d_U
we use the bounds obtained from the search for mono-jets plus missing
transverse energy at the LHC. The \mu N -> \tau X cross section is analyzed
when the target is a proton and it is found that the unparticle effects can be
larger than the contribution from Higgs exchange in the minimal supersymmetric
standard model. We also analyze the behavior of the angular and energy
distributions of the emitted tau lepton, which could be used to disentangle
among distinct new physics contributions. It is found that, for a beam with an
intensity of 10^20 muons with an energy around 50 GeV on a 10^2 gr/cm^2 mass
target annually, there would be about 10^2-10^3 \mu N -> \tau X events per
year. The potential background is discussed briefly.
