Measurement of Branching Fractions of Color-Suppressed Decays of the B0bar Meson to D(*)0 pi0, D(*)0 eta, D(*)0 omega, and D0 eta_prime

TL;DR

This paper measures the branching fractions of seven color-suppressed B0 meson decays using a large data sample, finding results larger than naive theoretical predictions and establishing significant signals for several decay channels.

Contribution

First precise measurements of branching fractions for seven color-suppressed B0 decays, challenging existing theoretical models with larger observed values.

Findings

Measured branching fractions for seven decay modes with statistical and systematic uncertainties.

Observed significant signals (>5 sigma) for three decay channels.

Set an upper limit for the D*0 eta' decay mode.

Abstract

Using a sample of 88.8 10**6 BBbar events collected with the BaBar detector at the PEP-II storage rings at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, we measure the branching fractions of seven color-suppressed B-meson decays: BF(B0bar to D0 pi0)=(2.9 +/- 0.2(stat.)+/- 0.3(syst.))*10**-4, BF(B0bar to D*0 pi0)=(2.9 +/- 0.4(stat.)+/- 0.5(syst.))*10**-4, BF(B0bar to D0 eta)=(2.5 +/- 0.2(stat.)+/- 0.3(syst.))*10**-4, BF(B0bar to D*0 eta)=(2.6 +/- 0.4(stat.)+/- 0.4(syst.))*10**-4, BF(B0bar to D0 omega)=(3.0 +/- 0.3(stat.)+/- 0.4(syst.))*10**-4, BF(B0bar to D*0 omega)=(4.2 +/- 0.7(stat.)+/- 0.9(syst.))*10**-4, and BF(B0bar to D0 eta_prime)=(1.7 +/- 0.4(stat.)+/- 0.2(syst.))*10**-4. We set the 90 % confidence-level upper limit: BF(B0bar to D*0 eta_prime) < 2.6*10**-4. The channels B0bar to D*0 eta, D*0 omega, and D0 eta_prime are seen with more than five-sigma statistical significance. All of these branching fractions are significantly larger than theoretical expectations based on the ``naive'' factorization model.