Measurement of the branching fractions of $\bar{B}\to D^{(*)} K^- K^{(*)0}_{(S)}$ and $\bar{B}\to D^{(*)}D_s^{-}$ decays at Belle II

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of branching fractions for specific B meson decays involving D and K mesons, including first observations of some decay modes, using Belle II data at SuperKEKB.

Contribution

It provides the first observation of certain B decay channels involving K and D mesons and improves the precision of existing measurements with Belle II data.

Findings

First observation of $ar{B}^0 o D^+ K^- K_S^0$ decays

First observation of $B^- o D^{*0} K^- K_S^0$ decays

Significant improvement in measurement precision for other channels

Abstract

We present measurements of the branching fractions of eight $\overline B{}^0\to D^{(*)+} K^- K^{(*)0}_{(S)}$, $B^{-}\to D^{(*)0} K^- K^{(*)0}_{(S)}$ decay channels. The results are based on data from SuperKEKB electron-positron collisions at the $\Upsilon(4S)$ resonance collected with the Belle II detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $362~\text{fb}^{-1}$. The event yields are extracted from fits to the distributions of the difference between expected and observed $B$ meson energy, and are efficiency-corrected as a function of $m(K^-K^{(*)0}_{(S)})$ and $m(D^{(*)}K^{(*)0}_{(S)})$ in order to avoid dependence on the decay model. These results include the first observation of $\overline B{}^0\to D^+K^-K_S^0$, $B^-\to D^{*0}K^-K_S^0$, and $\overline B{}^0\to D^{*+}K^-K_S^0$ decays and a significant improvement in the precision of the other channels compared to previous measurements. The helicity-angle distributions and the invariant mass distributions of the $K^- K^{(*)0}_{(S)}$ systems are compatible with quasi-two-body decays via a resonant transition with spin-parity $J^P=1^-$ for the $K^-K_S^0$ systems and $J^P= 1^+$ for the $K^-K^{*0}$ systems. We also present measurements of the branching fractions of four $\overline B{}^0\to D^{(*)+} D_s^-$, $B^{-}\to D^{(*)0} D_s^- $ decay channels with a precision compatible to the current world averages.