Observation of the decay $ Λ_b^0\rightarrow Λ_c^+τ^-\overlineν_τ$

Abstract

The first observation of the semileptonic $b$-baryon decay $ Λ_b^0 \rightarrow Λ_c^+ τ^-\overlineν_τ$, with a significance of $6.1\,σ$, is reported using a data sample corresponding to 3 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity, collected by the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV at the LHC. The $τ^-$ lepton is reconstructed in the hadronic decay to three charged pions. The branching fraction ${\mathcal{B}}(Λ_b^0 \rightarrow Λ_c^+τ^-\overlineν_τ) = (1.50 \pm 0.16\pm 0.25\pm 0.23)\%$ is obtained, where uncertainties are statistical, systematic and from the external branching fraction of the normalisation channel $Λ_b^0\rightarrow Λ_c^+π^-π^+π^-$. The ratio of semileptonic branching fractions ${\mathcal{R}}( Λ_c^+)\equiv {\mathcal{B}}( Λ_b^0 \rightarrow Λ_c^+ τ^-\overlineν_τ)/{\mathcal{B}}( Λ_b^0 \rightarrow Λ_c^+ μ^-\overlineν_μ)$ is derived to be $0.242 \pm 0.026 \pm 0.040\pm 0.059$, where the external branching fraction uncertainty from the channel $Λ_b^0\rightarrow Λ_c^+μ^-\overlineν_μ$ contributes to the last term. This result is in agreement with the Standard Model prediction.

"All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2021-044.html (LHCb public pages). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1708.08856