Observation of the rare decay B+->K+pi0pi0 and measurement of the quasi-two body contributions B+->K*(892)+pi0, B+->f0(980)K+ and B+->chic0K+

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation of the rare decay B+->K+pi0pi0 with precise measurements of its branching fraction and CP asymmetry, along with detailed analysis of related quasi-two body decay contributions.

Contribution

It provides the first observation of B+->K+pi0pi0 decay and the most precise measurements of its branching fraction and CP asymmetry, including contributions from specific quasi-two body decays.

Findings

Observation of B+->K+pi0pi0 with >10 sigma significance

Precise measurement of B(B+->K+pi0pi0) branching fraction

First measurements of CP asymmetry in B+->K+pi0pi0 and related decays

Abstract

We report an analysis of the charmless hadronic decays of charged B meson to the final state K+pi0pi0, using a data sample of 470+/-2.8 million BBbar events collected at the Y(4S) resonance. We observe an excess of signal events, with a significance above 10 standard deviations including systematic uncertainties, and measure the branching fraction and CP asymmetry to be B(B+->K+pi0pi0)=(16.2+/-1.2+/-1.5)x10^-6 and A_CP(B+->K+pi0pi0)=-0.06+/-0.06+/-0.04, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic respectively. Additionally we study the contributions of the B+->K*(892)+pi0, B+->f0(980)K+ and B+->chic0K+ quasi-two body decays. We report the world's best measurements of the branching fractions and CP asymmetry of the B+->K+pi0pi0 and B+->K*(892)+pi0 channels.