Measurements of B hadron lifetimes at CDF

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of various B hadron lifetimes using over 1 fb^-1 of data from the CDF II detector, including novel techniques for unbiased lifetime determination.

Contribution

It provides the world's best measurements of B_s, B_c^+, and Lambda_b lifetimes and introduces a Monte Carlo independent method for lifetime measurement in biased samples.

Findings

Precise B_s meson lifetime in flavor-specific decay mode.

B_c^+ meson lifetime measurements in semileptonic decays.

Lambda_b baryon lifetime in fully reconstructed decays.

Abstract

Using data samples in excess of 1 fb^-1 collected by the CDF II detector we present several world's best measurements of B hadron lifetimes. They include B_s meson lifetime in a flavor-specific decay mode, combining fully and partially reconstructed hadronic decays, B_c^+ meson lifetimes in semileptonic B_c^+ -> J/psi l+ X, l+=mu+,e+ decays and Lambda_b baryon lifetime in Lambda_c^+ pi- fully-reconstructed decays. In addition, we introduce a Monte Carlo independent technique for measuring B hadron lifetimes in data samples biased by displaced vertex triggers.