Measurement of the $B^0_s \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ branching fraction and search for $B^0 \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ decays at the LHCb experiment

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LHCb-PAPER-2013-046
CERN-PH-EP-2013-128
arXiv:1307.5024 [PDF]

(Submitted on 18 Jul 2013)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 (2013) 101805
Inspire 1243424

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Abstract

A search for the rare decays $B^0_s \to\mu^+\mu^-$ and $B^0 \to\mu^+\mu^-$ is performed at the LHCb experiment. The data analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of 1 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and 2 fb$^{-1}$ at 8 TeV. An excess of $B^0_s \to\mu^+\mu^-$ signal candidates with respect to the background expectation is seen with a significance of 4.0 standard deviations. A time-integrated branching fraction of ${\cal B}(B^0_s \to\mu^+\mu^-) = (2.9^{+1.1}_{-1.0})\times 10^{-9}$ is obtained and an upper limit of ${\cal B}(B^0 \to\mu^+\mu^-) < 7.4\times 10^{-10}$ at 95 confidence level is set. These results are consistent with the Standard Model expectations.

Figures and captions

Expected distribution of the BDT output for the $ B^0_s \to\mu^+\mu^-$ signal (black squares), obtained from $ B^0_{(s)}\to h^+{h}^{\prime -}$ control channels, and the combinatorial background (blue circles).	Fig1.pdf [9 KiB] HiDef png [110 KiB] Thumbnail [109 KiB] *.C file
Invariant mass distribution of the selected $ B^0_{(s)}\to \mu^+\mu^-$ candidates (black dots) with ${\rm BDT }>0.7$. The result of the fit is overlaid (blue solid line) and the different components detailed: $ B^0_s \to\mu^+\mu^-$ (red long dashed line), $ B^0\to\mu^+\mu^-$ (green medium dashed line), combinatorial background (blue medium dashed line), $ B^0_{(s)}\to h^+{h}^{\prime -}$ (magenta dotted line), $ B^{0(+)} \to \pi^{0(+)} \mu^+ \mu^-$ (light blue dot-dashed line), $ B^0\to \pi^- \mu^+ \nu_\mu$ and $ B^0_s \to K^- \mu^+ \nu_{\mu}$ (black dot-dashed line).	Fig2.pdf [14 KiB] HiDef png [208 KiB] Thumbnail [173 KiB] *.C file
$\textrm{CL}_{\textrm{s}}$ as a function of the assumed $ B^0\to\mu^+\mu^-$ branching fraction. The dashed curve is the median of the expected $\textrm{CL}_{\textrm{s}}$ distribution for background-only hypothesis. The green area covers, for each branching fraction value, $34.1 \%$ of the expected $\textrm{CL}_{\textrm{s}}$ distribution on each side of its median. The solid red curve is the observed $\textrm{CL}_{\textrm{s}}$ .	Fig3.pdf [10 KiB] HiDef png [220 KiB] Thumbnail [171 KiB] *.C file
Animated gif made out of all figures.	PAPER-2013-046.gif Thumbnail

Tables and captions

Expected background yields from $b$-hadron decays, with dimuon mass $m_{\mu\mu}\in[4900,6000] {\mathrm{ Me V /}c^2} $ and the relative fraction with $\rm{BDT }> 0.7$.	Table_1.pdf [55 KiB] HiDef png [57 KiB] Thumbnail [29 KiB] tex code
Expected limits for the background only (bkg) and background plus SM signal (bkg+SM) hypotheses, and observed limits on the $ B^0\to\mu^+\mu^-$ branching fraction.	Table_2.pdf [43 KiB] HiDef png [50 KiB] Thumbnail [23 KiB] tex code

Supplementary Material [file]

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