Measurements of branching fractions and $q^2$ distributions for $B \to \pi \ell \nu$ and $B \to \rho \ell \nu$ Decays with $B \to D^{(*)} \ell \nu$ Decay Tagging

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of branching fractions and $q^2$ distributions for specific $B$ meson decays to $ ho$ and $ ho$ mesons, using a large data sample and decay tagging to improve accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel decay tagging method using $B o D^{(*)} \, \ell \nu$ to measure charmless semileptonic $B$ decays with high purity and provides updated branching fractions and $q^2$ distributions.

Findings

Measured branching fractions for $B \to \pi \ell \nu$ and $B \to \rho \ell \nu$ decays.

Presented partial branching fractions in three $q^2$ intervals.

Derived $|V_{ub}|$ from measured data and lattice QCD form factors.

Abstract

We report measurements of the charmless semileptonic decays $B^0 \to \pi^- / \rho^- \ell^{+} \nu$ and $B^+ \to \pi^0 / \rho^0 \ell^{+} \nu$, based on a sample of $2.75 \times 10^8$ $B \bar{B}$ events collected at the $\Upsilon(4S)$ resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB $e^+e^-$ asymmetric collider. In this analysis, the accompanying $B$ meson is reconstructed in the semileptonic mode $B \to D^{(*)} \ell \nu$, enabling detection of the signal modes with high purity. We measure the branching fractions ${\mathcal B}(B^0 \to \pi^- \ell^+ \nu) = (1.38\pm 0.19\pm 0.14\pm 0.03) \times 10^{-4}$, ${\mathcal B}(B^0 \to \rho^- \ell^+ \nu) = (2.17\pm 0.54\pm 0.31\pm 0.08) \times 10^{-4}$, ${\mathcal B}(B^+ \to \pi^0 \ell^+ \nu) = (0.77\pm 0.14\pm 0.08\pm 0.00) \times 10^{-4}$ and ${\mathcal B}(B^+ \to \rho^0 \ell^+ \nu) = (1.33\pm 0.23\pm 0.17\pm 0.05) \times 10^{-4}$, where the errors are statistical, experimental systematic, and systematic due to form-factor uncertainties, respectively. For each mode we also present the partial branching fractions in three $q^2$ intervals: $q^2 < 8$, $8 \leq q^2 < 16$, and $q^2 \geq 16$ GeV$^2/c^2$. From our partial branching fractions for $B \to \pi \ell \nu$ and recent results for the form factor from unquenched Lattice QCD calculations, we obtain values of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$.