Measurement of the B0->pilnu Form Factor Shape and Branching Fraction, and Determination of |Vub| with a Loose Neutrino Reconstruction Technique

TL;DR

This study measures the B0->pilnu decay form factor shape and branching fraction using a novel neutrino reconstruction method, leading to a precise determination of |Vub|, a key parameter in quark flavor physics.

Contribution

It introduces a loose neutrino reconstruction technique for semileptonic B decays, enabling detailed form factor and |Vub| measurements with high statistical significance.

Findings

Branching fraction BF(B0->pilnu) = (1.44 +- 0.08 +- 0.10) x 10^-4

Form factor shape f+(q2) extracted from 12 q2 bins

|Vub| determined as (4.1 +- 0.2 +- 0.2 +0.6-0.4) x 10^-3

Abstract

We report the results of a study of the exclusive charmless semileptonic B0->pilnu decay undertaken with approximately 227 million BBbar pairs collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector. The analysis uses events in which the signal B mesons are reconstructed with a novel loose neutrino reconstruction technique. We obtain partial branching fractions in 12 bins of q2, the l+nu invariant mass squared, from which we extract the f+(q2) form factor shape and the total branching fraction: BF(B0->pilnu) = (1.44 +- 0.08(stat) +- 0.10(syst))x 10-4. Based on a recent theoretical calculation of the form factor, we find the magnitude of the CKM matrix element |Vub| to be (4.1 +- 0.2(stat) +- 0.2(syst) +0.6-0.4(FF))x 10-3, where the last uncertainty is due to the normalization of the form factor.