Measurement of the relative $B^{-} \!\rightarrow D^{0} / D^{*0} / D^{**0} μ^{-} \overlineν_μ$ branching fractions using $B^{-}$ mesons from $\overline{B}{}_{s2}^{*0}$ decays

Abstract

The decay of the narrow resonance $\overline{B}{}_{s2}^{*0}\!\rightarrow B^- K^+$ can be used to determine the $B^-$ momentum in partially reconstructed decays without any assumptions on the decay products of the $B^-$ meson. This technique is employed for the first time to distinguish contributions from $D^0$, $D^{*0}$, and higher-mass charmed states ($D^{**0}$) in semileptonic $B^-$ decays by using the missing-mass distribution. The measurement is performed using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 fb${}^{-1}$ collected with the LHCb detector in $pp$ collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV. The resulting branching fractions relative to the inclusive $B^- \!\rightarrow D^0 X μ^- \overlineν_μ$ are $f_{D^0} = \mathcal{B}( B^- \rightarrow D^0μ^-\overlineν_μ)/\mathcal{B}( B^- \rightarrow D^0 X μ^- \overlineν_μ) = 0.25 \pm 0.06$, $f_{D^{**0}} = \mathcal{B}( B^- \rightarrow ( D^{**0} \rightarrow D^0 X)μ^-\overlineν_μ)/\mathcal{B}( B^- \rightarrow D^0 X μ^- \overlineν_μ) = 0.21 \pm 0.07$, with $f_{D^{*0}} = 1 - f_{D^0} - f_{D^{**0}}$ making up the remainder.

All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2018-024.html . v2 includes minor text changes and two additional subfigures added during journal review