Observation of charmless baryonic decays $B_{(s)}^0\to p\overline{p}{h}^{+}{h}^{\prime -}$

Abstract

Decays of $B^0$ and $B_s^0$ mesons to the charmless baryonic final states $p\overline{p}{h}^{+}{h}^{\prime -}$, where $h$ and $h^{\prime }$ each denote a kaon or a pion, are searched for using the LHCb detector. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collision data collected at center-of-mass energies of $7$ and $8$TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $3$fb${}^{-1}$. Four-body charmless baryonic $B_s^0$ decays are observed for the first time. The decays $B_s^0\to p\overline{p}{K}^{+}{K}^{-}$, $B_s^0\to p\overline{p}{K}^{\pm }\ddot{I}{€}^{\mp }$, $B^0\to p\overline{p}{K}^{\pm }\ddot{I}{€}^{\mp }$ and $B^0\to p\overline{p}\ddot{I}{€}^{+}\ddot{I}{€}^{-}$ are observed with a significance greater than $5$ standard deviations; evidence at $4.1$ standard deviations is found for the $B^0\to p\overline{p}{K}^{+}{K}^{-}$ decay and an upper limit is set on the branching fraction for $B_s^0\to p\overline{p}\ddot{I}{€}^{+}\ddot{I}{€}^{-}$. Branching fractions in the kinematic region $m(p\overline{p})<2850$MeV$/c^2$ are measured relative to the $B^0\to J/\ddot{I}ˆ(\to p\overline{p})K^{\ast }(892{)}^0$ channel.

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-2017-005.html