Abstract.
From about 4 million hadronic \(\rm Z^0\) decays recorded by the OPAL detector on and near to the \(\rm Z^0\) resonance, we select a sample of more than 570 000 inclusively reconstructed B mesons. Orbitally-excited mesons \({\rm B}^*_J\) are reconstructed using \({\rm B}\pi^\pm\) combinations. Independently, \({\rm B}^*\) mesons are reconstructed using the decay ${\rm B}^*\rightarrow{\rm B}{\gamma}\(. The selected \){\rm B}^*$ candidates are used to obtain samples enriched or depleted in the decay \({\rm B}^*_J \rightarrow{\rm B}^* \pi^{\pm}(X)\), where (X) refers to decay modes with or without additional accompanying decay particles. From the number of signal candidates in the \({\rm B}\pi^\pm\) mass spectra of these two samples, we perform the first measurement of the branching ratio of orbitally-excited B mesons decaying into \({\rm B}^*\pi(X)\):
\( {\rm BR}( {\rm B}^*_J \rightarrow{\rm B}^* \pi (X)) = 0.85^{ +0.26}_{ -0.27} \pm 0.12 ,\)
where the first error is statistical and the second systematic.
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Received: 24 September 2001 / Published online: 1 March 2002
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The OPAL Collaboration., Abbiendi et al., G. Investigation of the decay of orbitally-excited B mesons and first measurement of the branching ratio \({\rm BR}({\rm B}^*_J \rightarrow{\rm B}^* \pi (X))\) . Eur. Phys. J. C 23, 437–454 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s100520200892
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s100520200892