Measurement of the B+ and B0 Lifetimes using Topological Vertexing

Abstract

The lifetimes of B+ and B0 mesons have been measured using a sample of 150,000 hadronic Z0 decays collected by the SLD experiment at the SLC between 1993 and 1995. The analysis reconstructs the decay length and charge of the B meson using a novel topological vertexing technique. This method results in a high statistics sample of 6033 (3665) charged (neutral) vertices with good charge purity. A maximum likelihood fit procedure finds: t(B+) = 1.67 +/- 0.07(stat) +/- 0.06(syst) ps, t(B0) = 1.66 +/- 0.08(stat) +/- 0.08(syst) ps, t(B+)/t(B0) = 1.01 +0.09-0.08(stat) +/- 0.05(syst).

13 pages, 3 figures