A measurement of the charged and neutral B meson lifetimes using fully reconstructed decays

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of the lifetimes of B^0 and B^+ mesons using fully reconstructed decays at the BABAR detector, providing important data for understanding B meson properties.

Contribution

It presents the first measurements of B meson lifetimes using fully reconstructed decays at the BABAR experiment, improving accuracy over previous methods.

Findings

Measured B^0 lifetime: 1.506 ps

Measured B^+ lifetime: 1.602 ps

Lifetime ratio B^+/B^0: 1.065

Abstract

Data collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC are used to study the lifetimes of the B^0 and B^+ mesons. The data sample consists of 7.4 fb-1 collected near the Y(4S) resonance. B^0 and B^+ mesons are fully reconstructed in several exclusive hadronic decay modes to charm and charmonium final states. The B lifetimes are determined from the flight length difference between the two B mesons which are pair-produced in the Y(4S) decay. The preliminary measurements of the lifetimes are tau_B0 = 1.506+/-0.052(stat)+/-0.029(syst) ps, tau_B+ = 1.602+/-0.049(stat)+/-0.035(syst) ps, and of their ratio is tau_B+/tau_B0 = 1.065+/-0.044(stat)+/-0.021(syst).