Measurements of branching fractions, rate asymmetries, and angular distributions in the rare decays B --> Kl+l- and B --> K*l+l-

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of rare B meson decays involving leptons, testing the Standard Model and searching for signs of new physics through branching fractions, asymmetries, and angular distributions.

Contribution

First comprehensive measurement of branching fractions, asymmetries, and angular distributions in B --> Kl+l- and B --> K*l+l- decays with large data sample.

Findings

Measured branching fractions consistent with Standard Model

No evidence of lepton flavor violation found

Angular distributions match theoretical predictions

Abstract

We present measurements of the flavor-changing neutral current decays B --> Kl+l- and B --> K*l+l-, where l+l- is either an e+e- or mu+mu- pair. The data sample comprises 229 x 10^6 Y(4s) -->to BBbar decays collected with the BaBar detector at the PEP-II e+e- storage ring. Flavor-changing neutral current decays are highly suppressed in the Standard Model and their predicted properties could be significantly modified by new physics at the electroweak scale. We measure the branching fractions B(B --> Kll) = (0.34 +- 0.07 +- 0.02) x 10^{-6}, B(B --> K*ll) = (0.78^{+0.19}_{-0.17} +- 0.11) x 10^{-6}, the direct CP asymmetries of these decays, and the relative abundances of decays to electrons and muons. For two regions in l+l- mass, above and below m(Jpsi), we measure partial branching fractions and the forward-backward angular asymmetry of the lepton pair. In these same regions we also measure the K* longitudinal polarization in B --> K*l+l- decays. Upper limits are obtained for the lepton flavor-violating decays B --> Kemu and B --> K*emu. All measurements are consistent with Standard Model expectations.