Observation of the decay $\hat{I}{ž}_b^{-}\to p{K}^{-}{K}^{-}$

Abstract

Decays of the $\hat{I}{ž}_b^{-}$ and $\hat{I}{\text{c◯}}_b^{-}$ baryons to the charmless final states $p{h}^{-}{h}^{\prime -}$, where $h^{(\prime )}$ denotes a kaon or pion, are searched for with the LHCb detector. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collision data collected at centre-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s}=7$ and $8TeV$, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $3{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. The decay $\hat{I}{ž}_b^{-}\to p{K}^{-}{K}^{-}$ is observed with a significance of $8.7$ standard deviations, and evidence at the level of $3.4$ standard deviations is found for the $\hat{I}{ž}_b^{-}\to p{K}^{-}\ddot{I}{€}^{-}$ decay. Results are reported, relative to the $B^{-}\to K^{+}{K}^{-}{K}^{-}$ normalisation channel, for the products of branching fractions and $b$-hadron production fractions. The branching fractions of $\hat{I}{ž}_b^{-}\to p{K}^{-}\ddot{I}{€}^{-}$ and $\hat{I}{ž}_b^{-}\to p\ddot{I}{€}^{-}\ddot{I}{€}^{-}$ relative to $\hat{I}{ž}_b^{-}\to p{K}^{-}{K}^{-}$ decays are also measured.

All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2016-050.html