Evidence for the decay $B^0\to p\bar{p}\pi^0$
Belle Collaboration: B. Pal, I. Adachi, K. Adamczyk, H. Aihara, D. M., Asner, H. Atmacan, V. Aulchenko, T. Aushev, R. Ayad, V. Babu, I. Badhrees, V., Bansal, P. Behera, C. Bele\~no, M. Berger, V. Bhardwaj, B. Bhuyan, T. Bilka,, J. Biswal, A. Bobrov, A. Bozek, M. Bra\v{c}ko

TL;DR
This paper provides the first evidence for the rare decay $B^0 o par{p}\pi^0$ with a measured branching fraction, using data from the Belle experiment, and sets limits on related intermediate decay modes.
Contribution
First evidence for the charmless baryonic decay $B^0 o par{p}\pi^0$ with a measured branching fraction and upper limits on related two-body decays.
Findings
Branching fraction $ imes 10^{-7}$: $5.0\pm1.8 ext{(stat)}\pm0.6 ext{(syst)}$
Significance of 3.1 standard deviations
Upper limit on $B^0 o \Delta^+ar{p}$ and $B^0 o ar{\Delta}^-p$ decays: $1.6 imes10^{-6}$
Abstract
We report a search for the charmless baryonic decay with a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 711~ containing pairs. The data was collected by the Belle experiment running on the resonance at the KEKB collider. We measure a branching fraction , where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The signal has a significance of 3.1 standard deviations and constitutes the first evidence for this decay mode. We also search for the intermediate two-body decays and , and set an upper limit on the branching fraction: at 90% confidence level.
| Source | Uncertainty (%) |
|---|---|
| PDF parametrization | |
| Calibration factor | |
| Fit bias | |
| reconstruction | 1.5 |
| Tracking | 0.7 |
| Particle identification | |
| Choice of | |
| Incorrectly reconstructed signal events | |
| Number of pairs | 1.4 |
| MC statistics | 0.4 |
| Total |
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The Belle Collaboration
Evidence for the decay
B. Pal
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973
I. Adachi
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
K. Adamczyk
H. Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Krakow 31-342
H. Aihara
Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033
D. M. Asner
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973
H. Atmacan
University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208
V. Aulchenko
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
T. Aushev
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow Region 141700
R. Ayad
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71451
V. Babu
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 400005
I. Badhrees
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71451
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442
V. Bansal
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352
P. Behera
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036
C. Beleño
II. Physikalisches Institut, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen
M. Berger
Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics, Vienna 1090
V. Bhardwaj
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, SAS Nagar, 140306
B. Bhuyan
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam 781039
T. Bilka
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, 121 16 Prague
J. Biswal
J. Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana
A. Bobrov
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
A. Bozek
H. Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Krakow 31-342
M. Bračko
University of Maribor, 2000 Maribor
J. Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana
T. E. Browder
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
M. Campajola
INFN - Sezione di Napoli, 80126 Napoli
Università di Napoli Federico II, 80055 Napoli
L. Cao
Institut für Experimentelle Teilchenphysik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, 76131 Karlsruhe
D. Červenkov
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, 121 16 Prague
V. Chekelian
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805 München
A. Chen
National Central University, Chung-li 32054
B. G. Cheon
Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791
K. Chilikin
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
K. Cho
Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Daejeon 305-806
S.-K. Choi
Gyeongsang National University, Chinju 660-701
Y. Choi
Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746
D. Cinabro
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202
S. Cunliffe
Deutsches Elektronen–Synchrotron, 22607 Hamburg
S. Di Carlo
LAL, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS/IN2P3, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay
Z. Doležal
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, 121 16 Prague
T. V. Dong
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
D. Dossett
School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010
S. Eidelman
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
D. Epifanov
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
J. E. Fast
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352
T. Ferber
Deutsches Elektronen–Synchrotron, 22607 Hamburg
B. G. Fulsom
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352
R. Garg
Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014
V. Gaur
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
N. Gabyshev
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
A. Garmash
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
A. Giri
Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Telangana 502285
P. Goldenzweig
Institut für Experimentelle Teilchenphysik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, 76131 Karlsruhe
Y. Guan
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47408
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
J. Haba
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
T. Hara
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
K. Hayasaka
Niigata University, Niigata 950-2181
H. Hayashii
Nara Women’s University, Nara 630-8506
W.-S. Hou
Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617
C.-L. Hsu
School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006
T. Iijima
Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602
Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602
K. Inami
Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602
A. Ishikawa
Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578
R. Itoh
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
M. Iwasaki
Osaka City University, Osaka 558-8585
Y. Iwasaki
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
W. W. Jacobs
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47408
S. Jia
Beihang University, Beijing 100191
Y. Jin
Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033
D. Joffe
Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia 30144
K. K. Joo
Chonnam National University, Kwangju 660-701
A. B. Kaliyar
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036
G. Karyan
Deutsches Elektronen–Synchrotron, 22607 Hamburg
H. Kichimi
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
C. Kiesling
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805 München
C. H. Kim
Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791
D. Y. Kim
Soongsil University, Seoul 156-743
K. T. Kim
Korea University, Seoul 136-713
S. H. Kim
Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791
K. Kinoshita
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
P. Kodyš
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, 121 16 Prague
S. Korpar
University of Maribor, 2000 Maribor
J. Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana
D. Kotchetkov
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
P. Križan
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana
J. Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana
R. Kroeger
University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi 38677
P. Krokovny
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
R. Kulasiri
Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia 30144
Y.-J. Kwon
Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749
J. Y. Lee
Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742
S. C. Lee
Kyungpook National University, Daegu 702-701
L. K. Li
Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
Y. B. Li
Peking University, Beijing 100871
L. Li Gioi
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805 München
J. Libby
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036
D. Liventsev
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
P.-C. Lu
Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617
T. Luo
Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Ion-beam Application (MOE) and Institute of Modern Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200443
J. MacNaughton
University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki 889-2192
C. MacQueen
School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010
M. Masuda
Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0032
T. Matsuda
University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki 889-2192
D. Matvienko
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
M. Merola
INFN - Sezione di Napoli, 80126 Napoli
Università di Napoli Federico II, 80055 Napoli
K. Miyabayashi
Nara Women’s University, Nara 630-8506
H. Miyata
Niigata University, Niigata 950-2181
R. Mizuk
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
Moscow Physical Engineering Institute, Moscow 115409
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow Region 141700
G. B. Mohanty
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 400005
M. Nakao
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
K. J. Nath
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam 781039
M. Nayak
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
N. K. Nisar
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260
S. Nishida
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
K. Nishimura
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
S. Ogawa
Toho University, Funabashi 274-8510
H. Ono
Nippon Dental University, Niigata 951-8580
Niigata University, Niigata 950-2181
Y. Onuki
Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033
P. Pakhlov
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
Moscow Physical Engineering Institute, Moscow 115409
G. Pakhlova
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow Region 141700
S. Pardi
INFN - Sezione di Napoli, 80126 Napoli
S.-H. Park
Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749
S. Patra
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, SAS Nagar, 140306
S. Paul
Department of Physics, Technische Universität München, 85748 Garching
T. K. Pedlar
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa 52101
R. Pestotnik
J. Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana
L. E. Piilonen
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
V. Popov
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow Region 141700
E. Prencipe
Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich
A. Rostomyan
Deutsches Elektronen–Synchrotron, 22607 Hamburg
G. Russo
INFN - Sezione di Napoli, 80126 Napoli
Y. Sakai
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
M. Salehi
University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur
Ludwig Maximilians University, 80539 Munich
S. Sandilya
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
T. Sanuki
Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578
V. Savinov
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260
O. Schneider
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne 1015
G. Schnell
University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, 48080 Bilbao
IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013 Bilbao
J. Schueler
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
C. Schwanda
Institute of High Energy Physics, Vienna 1050
A. J. Schwartz
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
Y. Seino
Niigata University, Niigata 950-2181
K. Senyo
Yamagata University, Yamagata 990-8560
M. E. Sevior
School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010
C. P. Shen
Beihang University, Beijing 100191
J.-G. Shiu
Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617
F. Simon
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805 München
A. Sokolov
Institute for High Energy Physics, Protvino 142281
E. Solovieva
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
M. Starič
J. Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana
Z. S. Stottler
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
J. F. Strube
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352
T. Sumiyoshi
Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo 192-0397
W. Sutcliffe
Institut für Experimentelle Teilchenphysik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, 76131 Karlsruhe
M. Takizawa
Showa Pharmaceutical University, Tokyo 194-8543
J-PARC Branch, KEK Theory Center, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
Theoretical Research Division, Nishina Center, RIKEN, Saitama 351-0198
U. Tamponi
INFN - Sezione di Torino, 10125 Torino
K. Tanida
Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Naka 319-1195
F. Tenchini
Deutsches Elektronen–Synchrotron, 22607 Hamburg
M. Uchida
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8550
T. Uglov
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow Region 141700
S. Uno
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba 305-0801
SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193
P. Urquijo
School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010
R. Van Tonder
Institut für Experimentelle Teilchenphysik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, 76131 Karlsruhe
G. Varner
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
A. Vinokurova
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
B. Wang
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805 München
C. H. Wang
National United University, Miao Li 36003
M.-Z. Wang
Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617
P. Wang
Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
M. Watanabe
Niigata University, Niigata 950-2181
S. Watanuki
Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578
E. Won
Korea University, Seoul 136-713
S. B. Yang
Korea University, Seoul 136-713
H. Ye
Deutsches Elektronen–Synchrotron, 22607 Hamburg
J. Yelton
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611
Y. Yusa
Niigata University, Niigata 950-2181
J. Zhang
Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
Z. P. Zhang
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026
V. Zhilich
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, Novosibirsk 630090
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090
V. Zhukova
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991
Abstract
We report a search for the charmless baryonic decay with a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 711 containing pairs. The data was collected by the Belle experiment running on the resonance at the KEKB collider. We measure a branching fraction , where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The signal has a significance of 3.1 standard deviations and constitutes the first evidence for this decay mode. We also search for the intermediate two-body decays and , and set an upper limit on the branching fraction: at 90% confidence level.
pacs:
13.25.Hw, 11.30.Er
The first observed charmless baryonic decay was Abe:2002ds . Following this first observation, many other charmless baryonic decays have been found PDG . Except for decays, all the channels reported to date are entirely reconstructed from charged particles in the final state. A noticeable hierarchy is also observed in the branching fractions of these decays: three-body decays are usually more frequent than their two-body counterparts but less frequent than four-body decays Bevan:2014iga ; Cheng:2014qxa . This phenomenon can be understood in terms of the so-called “threshold effect,” which refers to the fact that the meson prefers to decay into a di-baryon pair with low invariant mass accompanied by a fast recoil meson Bevan:2014iga ; Hou:2000bz ; Chen:2008sw . This peaking behavior was unexpected, and has led to various speculations about possible mechanisms Bevan:2014iga . Studying additional three-body baryonic decays might provide a better understanding of the dynamics of decays and the aforementioned threshold-effect. These decays are also useful for violation studies.
This paper reports a search for a three-body charmless baryonic decays to the final state charge-conjugate using a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 711 collected with the Belle detector Belle at the resonance at the KEKB asymmetric-energy (3.5 on 8.0 GeV) collider KEKB . So far, the decay has not been studied by any experiment. No theoretical prediction for the branching fraction of this process is yet available. A glance at the known branching fractions for decays PDG shows the three-body charmless baryonic decays to occur in the several times range, indicating that the discovery of the mode might be possible with the currently available data set.
The Belle detector is a large-solid-angle magnetic spectrometer consisting of a silicon vertex detector (SVD), a 50-layer central drift chamber (CDC), an array of aerogel threshold Cherenkov counters (ACC), a barrel-like arrangement of time-of-flight scintillation counters (TOF), and an electromagnetic calorimeter (ECL) comprising CsI(Tl) crystals. These detector components are located inside a superconducting solenoid coil that provides a 1.5 T magnetic field. An iron flux-return located outside the coil is instrumented (KLM) to detect mesons and to identify muons. Two inner detector configurations were used: a 2.0 cm radius beampipe and a three-layer SVD were used for the first pairs of data, while a 1.5 cm radius beampipe, a four-layer SVD, and a small-cell inner drift chamber were used for the remaining pairs of data. The detector is described in detail in Ref. Belle . Event selection requirements are optimized using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. MC events are generated using EvtGen Lange:2001uf , and the detector response is modeled using Geant3 geant3 . Final-state radiation is taken into account using the Photos package Golonka:2005pn .
The reconstruction of proceeds by first reconstructing candidates. An ECL cluster not matched to any track in the CDC is identified as a photon candidate. Such candidates are required to have an energy greater than 50 MeV in the barrel region and greater than 100 MeV in the end-cap regions, where the barrel region covers the polar angle and the end-cap regions cover the ranges and . To reject showers produced by neutral hadrons, the energy deposited in the array of ECL crystals centered on the crystal with the highest energy must exceed 80% of the energy deposited in the corresponding array of crystals. We require that the invariant mass be within (about in resolution) of the mass PDG . To improve the momentum resolution, we perform a mass-constrained fit and require that the resulting be less than 30. This requirement is relatively loose, retaining more than 99% of candidates.
We subsequently combine candidates with two oppositely charged tracks, identified as a proton-antiproton pair. Such tracks are identified using requirements on the distance of closest approach with respect to the interaction point along the axis (antiparallel to the beam) of cm, and in the transverse plane of cm. In addition, charged tracks are required to have a minimum number of SVD hits ( along the axis and in the transverse direction). Particle identification is achieved using information from the CDC, the TOF, and the ACC subdetectors. This information is combined to form a hadron likelihood ; a charged track with likelihood ratios of and is regarded as a proton or antiproton. Furthermore, we reject tracks consistent with either the electron or muon hypothesis. The proton identification efficiency is 75% and the probability for a kaon (pion) to be misidentified as a proton is 6% (2%).
Candidate mesons are identified using the beam-energy-constrained mass, , and the energy difference , where is the beam energy, and and are the reconstructed energy and momentum, respectively, of the candidate. All quantities are evaluated in the center-of-mass (CM) frame. To improve the resolution, the momentum is calculated as , where is the nominal mass PDG , and are the energy and momentum of the hadron (). In addition, a vertex fit is performed to the charged tracks to form a vertex. We require that the from the fit be less than 200. Events with and are retained for further analysis. The signal yield is calculated in a smaller region and . In order to reject contributions from charmonium states (, , , , , and ), we apply a “charmonium veto” and exclude the regions of and from the event sample.
Charmless hadronic decays suffer from large amount of continuum background, arising from light quark production (). To suppress this background, we use a multivariate analyzer based on a neural network (NN) Feindt:2006pm that distinguishes jet-like continuum events from more spherical events. The NN uses the following input variables: the cosine of the angle between the thrust axis Brandt:1964sa of the candidate and the thrust axis of the rest of the event; the cosine of the angle between the thrust axis and the axis; the cosine of the angle between the axis and the candidate flight direction; a set of 18 modified Fox-Wolfram moments SFW ; the ratio of the second to zeroth (unmodified) Fox-Wolfram moments; the separation along the axis between the two vertices; and the -flavor tagging information Kakuno:2004cf . All but for the last two quantities are evaluated in the CM frame. The NN is trained using MC simulated signal events and background events. The NN generates a single output variable () that ranges from for background-like events to for signal-like events. We require , which rejects approximately 86% of the background while retaining 94% of the signal. We then translate to a new variable
[TABLE]
where and . This translation is advantageous as the distribution for both signal and background is well described by a sum of Gaussian functions.
After applying all selection criteria, approximately 7% of the events have multiple candidates. For these events, we retain the candidate having the smallest sum of values obtained from the mass-constrained fit and the vertex-constrained fit. According to MC simulation, this criterion selects the correct candidate in 83% of multiple-candidate events.
We measure the signal yield by performing an unbinned extended maximum likelihood fit to the variables , , and . The likelihood function is defined as
[TABLE]
where is the yield of component ; is the probability density function (PDF) of component for event ; runs over all signal and background components; and runs over all events in the sample (). The background components consist of continuum events, (generic ) processes, and rare charmless processes. The latter two backgrounds are small compared to the continuum events and are studied using MC simulations. The rare charmless background shows a peaking structure in the distribution, most of which arises from decays. As correlations among the variables , , and are found to be small, the three-dimensional PDFs are factorized into the product of separate one-dimensional PDFs.
The PDF of signal events consists of two parts: one for candidates that are correctly reconstructed, and one for those incorrectly reconstructed, , at least one daughter originates from the other (tag-side) . For the former case, the and distributions are modeled with Gaussian and Crystal Ball (CB) Skwarnicki:1986xj functions, respectively, while the distribution is modeled with a sum of Gaussian and bifurcated Gaussian functions having a common mean. The peak positions and resolutions of the , , and PDFs are adjusted to account for data-MC differences observed in a high-statistics control sample of decays. For the latter case, the correlated two-dimensional - distribution is modeled with a non-parametric PDF Cranmer:2000du , and the component is modeled with a Gaussian function. The fraction of incorrectly reconstructed decays ( in the signal region) is taken from MC simulation. For the rare charmless background, the component is modeled with a bifurcated Gaussian function. The and components are modeled by a joint two-dimensional non-parametric PDF. We model the , , and distributions of continuum background with an ARGUS Albrecht:1990am function having its endpoint fixed to , a first-order polynomial, and a sum of two Gaussians having a common mean, respectively. For the generic background, we use a bifurcated Gaussian function to model the shape, while the similar shapes as of continuum background are used to model the and distributions. In addition to the fitted yields , all shape parameters for continuum background are also floated. All other parameters are fixed to the corresponding MC values.
The projections of the fit are shown in Fig. 1.
From the fit, we extract signal events, continuum, generic , and rare charmless background events in the signal region. The resulting branching fraction is calculated as
[TABLE]
where represents the extracted signal yield, is the total number of events, is the reconstruction efficiency. The efficiency is corrected to account for possible differences in particle identification (PID) and detection efficiencies between data and simulations. In Eq. (3) we assume equal production of and pairs at the resonance. The result is
[TABLE]
where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. This is the first measurement of this branching fraction.
The signal significance is calculated as , where is the likelihood value when the signal yield is fixed to zero, and is the likelihood value of the nominal fit. To include systematic uncertainties in the significance, we convolve the likelihood distribution with a Gaussian function whose width is set to the total systematic uncertainty that affects the signal yield. The resulting significance is 3.1 standard deviations. Thus, our measurement constitutes the first evidence for this decay mode.
The systematic uncertainty in arises from several sources, as listed in Table 1. The uncertainty due to the fixed parameters in the PDF is estimated by varying them individually according to their statistical uncertainties. For each variation, the branching fraction is recalculated, and the difference with the nominal value is taken as the systematic uncertainty associated with that parameter. The smoothing parameters of the non-parametric functions are also varied. The differences in the fit results are included as systematic uncertainties. We add all uncertainties in quadrature to obtain the overall uncertainty due to PDF parametrization. The uncertainties due to errors in the calibration factors used to account for data-MC differences in the signal PDF are evaluated separately but in a similar manner. To test the stability of our fitting procedure, we generate and fit a large ensemble of pseudoexperiments. We find a potential fit bias of %. We attribute this bias to neglecting small correlations among the fitted observables. We assign a 1.5% systematic uncertainty due to reconstruction; this is determined from a study of decays Ryu:2014vpc . The systematic uncertainty due to the track reconstruction efficiency is 0.35% per track, as determined from a study of partially reconstructed decays. A 0.6% systematic uncertainty is assigned due to the particle identification efficiency of the proton-antiproton pair; this is determined from a study of decays. We determine the systematic uncertainty due to the selection by applying different criteria and comparing the results with that of the nominal selection. The uncertainty due to the estimated fraction of incorrectly reconstructed signal events is obtained by varying this fraction by . The systematic uncertainty due to the total number of pairs is 1.4%, and the uncertainty due to MC used to evaluate the reconstructed efficiency is 0.4%. The total systematic uncertainty is obtained by adding each source in quadrature, as they are assumed to be uncorrelated.
Figure 2 shows the background-subtracted and efficiency-corrected distribution of , where the charmonium veto is removed. For the background subtraction, we use the sPlot technique Pivk:2004ty , with , and as the discriminating variables.
As expected, an enhancement near threshold is visible. The background-subtracted distributions of and are shown in Fig. 3.
No obvious structure is seen in these distributions.
We also search for the intermediate two-body decay . Events with are selected for this search. No significant signal is observed in this mass range. We set an upper limit on the branching fraction of at 90% confidence level (C.L.) using a Bayesian approach. The limit is obtained by integrating the likelihood function from zero to infinity; the value that corresponds to 90% of this total area is taken as the 90% C.L. upper limit. We include the systematic uncertainty in the calculation by convolving the likelihood distribution with a Gaussian function whose width is set equal to the total systematic uncertainty of . As we do not know the flavor of the meson at decay, we express our result as a sum of final states containing either a or a . The result is
[TABLE]
This is the first such limit and is in agreement with the theoretical predictions Chernyak:1990ag ; Cheng:2001tr .
In summary, using the full set of Belle data, we report a measurement of the branching fraction for decays. We obtain , where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The significance of this result is 3.1 standard deviations, and thus this measurement constitutes the first evidence for this decay. We also search for the intermediate two-body decays and , and set an upper limit on the branching fraction, at 90% C.L.
We thank the KEKB group for the excellent operation of the accelerator; the KEK cryogenics group for the efficient operation of the solenoid; and the KEK computer group, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) computing group for strong computing support; and the National Institute of Informatics, and Science Information NETwork 5 (SINET5) for valuable network support. We acknowledge support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) of Japan, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and the Tau-Lepton Physics Research Center of Nagoya University; the Australian Research Council including grants DP180102629, DP170102389, DP170102204, DP150103061, FT130100303; Austrian Science Fund under Grant No. P 26794-N20; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Contracts No. 11435013, No. 11475187, No. 11521505, No. 11575017, No. 11675166, No. 11705209; Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Grant No. QYZDJ-SSW-SLH011; the CAS Center for Excellence in Particle Physics (CCEPP); the Shanghai Pujiang Program under Grant No. 18PJ1401000; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under Contract No. LTT17020; the Carl Zeiss Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Excellence Cluster Universe, and the VolkswagenStiftung; the Department of Science and Technology of India; the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of Italy; National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea Grants No. 2015H1A2A1033649, No. 2016R1D1A1B01010135, No. 2016K1A3A7A09005 603, No. 2016R1D1A1B02012900, No. 2018R1A2B3003 643, No. 2018R1A6A1A06024970, No. 2018R1D1 A1B07047294; Radiation Science Research Institute, Foreign Large-size Research Facility Application Supporting project, the Global Science Experimental Data Hub Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and KREONET/GLORIAD; the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Center; the Grant of the Russian Federation Government, Agreement No. 14.W03.31.0026; the Slovenian Research Agency; Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Spain; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan; and the United States Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
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