Measurement of the $B_c^{\pm }$ production cross section in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV

Abstract

We describe a measurement of the ratio of the cross sections times branching fractions of the $B_c^{+}$ meson in the decay mode $B_c^{+}\to J/\ddot{I}ˆ\hat{I}¼\hat{I}½$ to the $B^{+}$ meson in the decay mode $B^{+}\to J/\ddot{I}ˆK^{+}$ in proton-antiproton collisions at center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV. The measurement is based on the complete CDF Run II data set, which comes from an integrated luminosity of $8.7{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. The ratio of the production cross sections times branching fractions for $B_c^{+}$ and $B_c^{+}$ mesons with momentum transverse to the beam greater than $6\text{GeV}/c$ and rapidity magnitude smaller than 0.6 is $0.211\pm 0.012~\mbox{(stat)}^{+0.021}_{-0.020}~\mbox{(syst)}$. Using the known $B^{+}\to J/\ddot{I}ˆK^{+}$ branching fraction, the known $B^{+}$ production cross section, and a selection of the predicted $B_c^{+}\to J/\ddot{I}ˆ\hat{I}¼\hat{I}½$ branching fractions, the range for the total $B_c^{+}$ production cross section is estimated.

28 pages, 25 figures, and 20 tables. This version is consistent with paper published in Phys. Rev. D on March 1, 2016