Measurement of branching fractions for exclusive B decays to charmonium final states

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of how often B mesons decay into specific charmonium-containing final states, providing valuable data for understanding B meson decay mechanisms.

Contribution

It presents the first measurements of branching fractions for B decays into charmonium states with various light mesons using a large data sample from the BABAR detector.

Findings

Measured branching fractions for B decays to J/psi, psi(2S), and chi_c1 with K, K*, and pi^0.

Results improve understanding of B decay dynamics and charmonium production.

Data supports theoretical models of B meson decay processes.

Abstract

We report branching fraction measurements for exclusive decays of charged and neutral B mesons into two-body final states containing a charmonium meson. We use a sample of 22.72 +/- 0.36 million B anti-B events collected between October 1999 and October 2000 with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage rings at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The charmonium mesons considered here are J/psi, psi(2S), and chi_c1, and the light meson in the decay is either a K, K^*, or pi^0.