Search for rare leptonic B decays at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper reports on searches for rare leptonic B meson decays at the Tevatron collider, setting upper limits on their branching ratios to constrain new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Contribution

It provides the first combined limits on $B^0_{s,d} o \mu^+ \mu^-$ decays from Fermilab Tevatron data, improving constraints on flavor-changing neutral currents.

Findings

CDF sets upper limits of 7.5×10^{-7} for $B^0_s o \mu^+ \\mu^-$

DØ improves the limit to 5.0×10^{-7} for $B^0_s o \\mu^+ \\mu^-$

Results constrain new physics models predicting enhanced leptonic B decays.

Abstract

Results of a search for the Flavor-Changing Neutral Current decay $B^0_{s,d} \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ using $p\bar{p}$ collision data at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV collected at Fermilab Tevatron collider by the CDF and D{\O}detectors are presented. CDF reports upper limits on ${\cal B} (B^0_{s} \to \mu^+ \mu^-) \leq 7.5 \cdot10^{-7}$ and ${\cal B}(B^0_{d} \to \mu^+ \mu^-) \leq 1.9 \cdot10^{-7}$ at the 95% C.L. using 171 pb$^{-1}$. The D{\O}Collaboration used 240 pb$^{-1}$ to set an even more stringent limit on the branching ratio for $B^0_{s} \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ of $5.0\cdot 10^{-7}$ at the 95% C.L.