Observation of $D^0$ meson decays to $\pi^+\pi^-\mu^+\mu^-$ and $K^+K^-\mu^+\mu^-$ final states

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation and measurement of the branching fractions of specific rare $D^0$ meson decays to $ ho^0/ ext{omega}$ and $ ho^0/ ext{omega}$ mesons with muon pairs, using LHCb data at 8 TeV.

Contribution

It presents the first observation of $D^0 o ho^0/ ext{omega} o ext{final states}$ with muons and measures their branching fractions, expanding knowledge of charm meson decay modes.

Findings

First observation of these decay modes.

Measured branching fractions with statistical, systematic, and normalization uncertainties.

Analyzed the dependence of branching fractions on dimuon mass.

Abstract

The first observation of the $D^0 \to \pi^+\pi^-\mu^+\mu^-$ and $D^0 \to K^+K^-\mu^+\mu^-$ decays is reported using a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by LHCb at a center-of-mass energy of 8$\,$TeV, and corresponding to 2$\,$fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity. The corresponding branching fractions are measured using as normalization the decay $D^0 \to K^- \pi^+[\mu^+\mu^-]_{\rho^0/\omega}$, where the two muons are consistent with coming from the decay of a $\rho^0$ or $\omega$ meson. The results are $\mathcal{B}(D^0 \to \pi^+\pi^-\mu^+\mu^-)=(9.64\pm0.48\pm0.51\pm0.97)\times10^{-7}$ and $\mathcal{B}(D^0 \to K^+K^-\mu^+\mu^-)=( 1.54\pm0.27\pm0.09\pm0.16)\times10^{-7}$, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and due to the limited knowledge of the normalization branching fraction. The dependence of the branching fraction on the dimuon mass is also investigated.