Measurement of the Branching Fraction of the Singly Cabibbo-Suppressed Decay $Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛK^{+}$

Abstract

We report a branching fraction measurement of the singly Cabibbo-suppressed decay $Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛK^{+}$ using a data sample collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII storage ring. The data span center-of-mass energies from 4.599 to 4.950 GeV and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 6.44 fb$^{-1}$. The branching fraction of $Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛK^{+}$ relative to that of the Cabibbo-favored decay $Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛπ^{+}$ is measured to be $\mathcal{R}=\frac{\mathcal{B}(Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛK^{+})}{\mathcal{B}(Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛπ^{+})}=(4.78\pm0.34\pm0.20)\%$. Combining with the world-average value of $\mathcal{B}(Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛπ^{+})$, we obtain $\mathcal{B}(Λ_c^+\toΛK^+)=(6.21\pm0.44\pm0.26\pm0.34)\times 10^{-4}$. Here the first uncertainties are statistical, the second systematic, and the third comes from the uncertainty of the $Λ_{c}^{+}\toΛπ^{+}$ branching fraction. This result, which is more precise than previous measurements, does not agree with theoretical predictions, and suggests that non-factorizable contributions have been under-estimated in current models.

8 pages, 2 figures