First observation of five charmless hadronic B decays

TL;DR

This paper reports the first clear observations of five charmless hadronic B decay modes, highlighting the dominance of penguin processes and providing new measurements of their branching fractions.

Contribution

First observation of five specific charmless hadronic B decay modes with measured branching fractions, advancing understanding of B decay mechanisms.

Findings

Clear signals in five decay modes detected

Branching fractions for etapr K modes are significantly larger

Evidence suggests dominance of hadronic penguin processes

Abstract

There has been much progress in measurements of charmless hadronic B decays during 1997. Building on the previous indications from CLEO and LEP, CLEO now has clear signals in five exclusive final states: K^+\pi^, K^0\pi^+, etapr K^+, etapr K^0, and omega K^+. The branching fractions for the etapr K modes are several times larger than the others. A similar strikingly large signal has been seen in the inclusive decay, B->etapr X_S. All of these signals would appear to be dominated by hadronic penguin processes. (Invited talk presented at the Seventh International Symposium On Heavy Flavor Physics, Santa Barbara, CA, July 7-11, 1997.)