Observation of orbitally excited B mesons in pp̅ collisions at √s =1.8  TeV

Authors

• T. Affolder, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
• Kenneth A. Bloom, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Collider Detector at Fermilab Collaboration

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

10-1-2001

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. D 64, 072002 (2001). http://prd.aps.org. Copyright © 2001 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

We measure the relative rate of production of orbitally excited (L=1) states of B mesons (B**) by observing their decays into B π ^±. We reconstruct B mesons through semileptonic decay channels using data collected in pp̅ collisions at √s =1.8 TeV. The fraction of light B mesons that are produced as L=1B** states is measured to be 0.28±0.06(stat) ±0.03(syst). We also measure the collective mass of the B** states, and quantify the result by quoting the (model-dependent) mass of the lowest B** state to be m (B₁)=5.71 ±0.02 GeV/c².