Search for the B_c Meson in Hadronic Z^0 Decays

Abstract

A search for decays of the B_c meson was performed using data collected from 1990-1995 with the OPAL detector on or near the Z peak at LEP. The decay channels B_c^+ -> J/psi pi^+, B_c^+ -> J/psi a_1^+ and B_c^+ -> J/psi ell^+ nu were investigated, where ell denotes an electron or a muon. Two candidates are observed in the mode B_c^+ -> J/psi pi^+, with an estimated background of (0.63 +/- 0.20) events. The weighted mean of the masses of the two candidates is (6.32 +/- 0.06) GeV/c^2, which is consistent with the predicted mass of the B_c meson. One candidate event is observed in the mode B_c^+ -> J/psi ell^+ nu with an estimated background of (0.82 +/- 0.19) events. No candidate events are observed in the B_c^+ -> J/psi a_1^+ decay mode, with an estimated background of (1.10 +/- 0.22) events. Upper bounds at the 90% confidence level are set on the production rates for these processes.

18 pages, LaTeX, uses a4p.sty, 6 eps figures included, submitted to Phys. Lett. B

Cited by in corpus (27)

• Heavy quarkonium: progress, puzzles, and opportunities
• A review of the open charm and open bottom systems
• Observation of the B_c Meson in p-bar p Collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV
• Observation of B_c Mesons in p-bar p Collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV
• Light Meson Spectroscopy
• Observation of the Decay $B_c^{\pm }\to J/\psi {\pi }^{\pm }$ and Measurement of the $B_c^{\pm }$ Mass
• Measurement of the Bc meson mass in the exclusive decay Bc --> Jpsi Pi
• Evidence for the exclusive decay Bc+- to J/psi pi+- and measurement of the mass of the Bc meson
• Mesons with Beauty and Charm: New Horizons in Spectroscopy
• The $B_c$ mass up to order ${\alpha }_s^4$
• Masses of doubly heavy-quark baryons in an extended chromomagnetic model
• Production of doubly heavy-flavored hadrons at $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ colliders
• Lepton number violation by heavy Majorana neutrino in $B$ decays
• B_{c} meson and the light-heavy quarkonium spectrum
• The $B_c(B_c^{\ast })$ meson production via the proton-nucleus and the nucleus-nucleus collision modes at the colliders RHIC and LHC
• Calculation of the B_{c}leptonic decay constant using the shifted N-expansion method
• R Parity violating enhancement of Bu -> l nu and Bc -> l nu
• Flavor Physics at the CEPC: a General Perspective
• Towards the unified description of light and heavy hadrons in the bag model approach
• Radiative Weak Annihilation Decays
• Electromagnetic transitions of $(b\bar{c})$ bound system
• P-wave excited $B_c^{\ast \ast }$ meson photoproduction at the LHeC
• Doubly Heavy Tetraquarks and Baryons
• The magnetic dipole transitions in the $(c\bar{b})$ binding system
• In-medium mass shift of two-flavored heavy mesons, $B_c$, $B_c^{\ast }$, $B_s$, $B_s^{\ast }$, $D_s$ and $D_s^{\ast }$
• Exclusive production of $B_c$ mesons in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ colliders
• Possibility of experimental study on nonleptonic $B_c^{\ast }$ weak decays