Reconstruction of $B \to \rho \ell \nu_\ell$ decays identified using hadronic decays of the recoil $B$ meson in 2019 -- 2021 Belle II data

TL;DR

This paper measures the branching fractions of specific semileptonic B meson decays using Belle II data, employing full hadronic reconstruction of the recoil B meson to identify signal events.

Contribution

First measurement of $B o ho u$ decays using Belle II data with full hadronic recoil reconstruction.

Findings

Branching fraction for $B^0 o ho^- u$ is approximately 4.12 x 10^{-4}.

Branching fraction for $B^+ o ho^0 u$ is approximately 1.77 x 10^{-4}.

Systematic uncertainties are dominated by modeling nonresonant contributions.

Abstract

We present results on the semileptonic decays $B^0 \to \rho^- \ell^+ \nu_\ell$ and $B^+ \to \rho^0 \ell^+ \nu_\ell$ in a sample corresponding to 189.9/fb of Belle II data at the SuperKEKB $e^- e^+$ collider. Signal decays are identified using full reconstruction of the recoil $B$ meson in hadronic final states. We determine the total branching fractions via fits to the distributions of the square of the "missing" mass in the event and the dipion mass in the signal candidate and find ${\mathcal{B}(B^0\to\rho^-\ell^+ \nu_\ell) = (4.12 \pm 0.64(\mathrm{stat}) \pm 1.16(\mathrm{syst})) \times 10^{-4}}$ and ${\mathcal{B}({B^+\to\rho^0\ell^+\nu_\ell}) = (1.77 \pm 0.23 (\mathrm{stat}) \pm 0.36 (\mathrm{syst})) \times 10^{-4}}$ where the dominant systematic uncertainty comes from modeling the nonresonant $B\to (\pi\pi)\ell^+\nu_\ell$ contribution.