Search for the Flavor-Changing Neutral Current Decay B_s⁰ → μ⁺μ^- in pp̅ Collisions at √s = 1.96 TeV with the D0 Detector

Authors

V. M. Abazov, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
Gregory R. Snow, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
D0 Collaboration

Date of this Version

2-25-2005

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 071802 (2005). http://prl.aps.org. Copyright © 2005 American Physical Society. Used by permission.

Abstract

We present the results of a search for the flavor-changing neutral current decay B_s⁰ → μ⁺μ^- using a data set with integrated luminosity of 240 pb^-1 of pp̅ collisions at √s = 1.96 TeV collected with the D0 detector in run II of the Fermilab Tevatron collider.We find the upper limit on the branching fraction to be Ɓ(B_s⁰ → μ⁺μ^-) ≤ 5.0 x 10^-7 at the 95% C.L. assuming no contributions from the decay B_d⁰ → μ⁺μ^- in the signal region. This limit is the most stringent upper bound on the branching fraction B_s⁰ → μ⁺μ^- to date.