Search for rare purely leptonic decays at LHCb

Rare lepton decays of the B(s), D and K mesons are sensitive probes of New Physics. In particular, the search for the decays $B^0_(s) -> \mu^+ \mu^-$ provides information on the presence of new (pseudo-)scalar particles. LHCb is well suited for these analyses due to its large acceptance and trigger efficiency, as well as its excellent invariant mass resolution and lepton identification capabilities. The status of these analyses with $\sim1$ fb$^{-1}$ of pp collisions collected by LHCb in 2011 at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV is reviewed.Comment: Proceedings of CKM 2012, the 7th International Workshop on the CKM Unitarity Triangle, University of Cincinnati, USA, 28 September - 2 October 201

Bs0→μ+μ−B^0_{s} \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^- at LHC

Rare leptonic decays of $B_{(s)}^0$ mesons are sensitive probes of New Physics effects. A combination of the CMS and LHCb analyses on the search of the rare decays $B_{s}^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ and $B^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ is presented. The branching fractions of $B_{s}^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ and $B^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ are measured to be \mathcal{B}(B_{s}^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-) = (2.8 \,^{+0.7}_{-0.6}) \times 10^{-9} and \mathcal{B}(B^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-) = (3.9 \,^{+1.6}_{-1.4}) \times 10^{-10} respectively. A statistical significances of $6.2\,\sigma$ is evaluated for $B_{s}^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ from the Wilks' theorem while a significance of $3.0\, \sigma$ is measured for $B^0 \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ from the Feldman-Cousins procedure.Comment: Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on the CKM Unitarity Triangle (CKM 2014), Vienna, Austria, September 8-12, 201

Rare decays at hadron colliders

Rare lepton decays of the B0(s) mesons are sensitive probes of New Physics. The search for the decays B0(s)→ μ+μ− may provide information on the presence of new (pseudo-) scalar particles. Also the study of the electroweak penguin processes are powerful probes for new physics, as physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) can enter via virtual particles at the same level as SM physics. The Tevatron collider opened the way to high precision Heavy Flavor physics at hadron collider experiments, while the LHCb experiment definitively proved the physics performances are competitive with the B-factories. This is a short review of the searches of rare decays performed at the hadron colliders

Performance of the Muon Identification at LHCb

The performance of the muon identification in LHCb is extracted from data using muons and hadrons produced in J/\psi->\mu\mu, \Lambda->p\pi and D^{\star}->\pi D0(K\pi) decays. The muon identification procedure is based on the pattern of hits in the muon chambers. A momentum dependent binary requirement is used to reduce the probability of hadrons to be misidentified as muons to the level of 1%, keeping the muon efficiency in the range of 95-98%. As further refinement, a likelihood is built for the muon and non-muon hypotheses. Adding a requirement on this likelihood that provides a total muon efficiency at the level of 93%, the hadron misidentification rates are below 0.6%.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure

Improved performance of the LHCb Outer Tracker in LHC Run 2

The LHCb Outer Tracker is a gaseous detector covering an area of $5\times 6 m^2$ with 12 double layers of straw tubes. The performance of the detector is presented based on data of the LHC Run 2 running period from 2015 and 2016. Occupancies and operational experience for data collected in $p p$, pPb and PbPb collisions are described. An updated study of the ageing effects is presented showing no signs of gain deterioration or other radiation damage effects. In addition several improvements with respect to LHC Run 1 data taking are introduced. A novel real-time calibration of the time-alignment of the detector and the alignment of the single monolayers composing detector modules are presented, improving the drift-time and position resolution of the detector by 20\%. Finally, a potential use of the improved resolution for the timing of charged tracks is described, showing the possibility to identify low-momentum hadrons with their time-of-flight.Comment: 29 pages, 20 figures, minor changes to match the published versio

Measurement of the front-end dead-time of the LHCb muon detector and evaluation of its contribution to the muon detection inefficiency

A method is described which allows to deduce the dead-time of the front-end electronics of the LHCb muon detector from a series of measurements performed at different luminosities at a bunch-crossing rate of 20 MHz. The measured values of the dead-time range from 70 ns to 100 ns. These results allow to estimate the performance of the muon detector at the future bunch-crossing rate of 40 MHz and at higher luminosity

A global fit to determine the pseudoscalar mixing angle and the gluonium content of the eta' meson

We update the values of the eta-eta' mixing angle and of the eta' gluonium content by fitting our measurement R_phi = BR(phi to eta' gamma)/ BR(phi to eta gamma) together with several vector meson radiative decays to pseudoscalars (V to P gamma), pseudoscalar mesons radiative decays to vectors (P to V gamma) and the eta' to gamma gamma, pi^0 to gamma gamma widths. From the fit we extract a gluonium fraction of Z^2_G = 0.12 +- 0.04, the pseudoscalar mixing angle psi_P = (40.4 +- 0.6) degree and the phi-omega mixing angle psi_V = (3.32 +- 0.09) degree. Z^2_G and psi_P are fairly consistent with those previously published. We also evaluate the impact on the eta' gluonium content determination of future experimental improvements of the eta' branching ratios and decay width.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures to submit to JHE

Study of the process e+e- -> omega pi0 in the phi-meson mass region with the KLOE detector

We have studied the e+e- -> omegapi0 cross section in the sqrt(s) interval 1000-1030 MeV using the pi+pi-pi0pi0 and pi0pi0gamma final states with a sample of ~600 pb^-1 collected with the KLOE detector at DAFNE. By fitting the observed interference pattern around M_phi for both final states, we extract the ratio of the decay widths Gamma(omega->pi0gamma)/Gamma(omega->pi+pi-pi0) = 0.0897 +- 0.0016 and derive the branching fractions BR(omega -> pi+pi-pi0)= (90.24 +- 0.19)%, BR(omega -> pi0gamma) = (8.09 +- 0.14)%. The parameters describing the e+e- -> omegapi0 reaction around M_\phi are also used to extract the branching fraction for the OZI and G-parity violating phi -> omegapi0 decay: BR(phi->omegapi0) = (4.4 +- 0.6)x10^-5.Comment: 12 Pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physics Letter

Study of the a_0(980) meson via the radiative decay phi->eta pi^0 gamma with the KLOE detector

We have studied the phi->a_0(980) gamma process with the KLOE detector at the Frascati phi-factory DAPhNE by detecting the phi->eta pi^0 gamma decays in the final states with eta->gamma gamma and eta->pi^+ pi^- pi^0. We have measured the branching ratios for both final states: Br(phi->eta pi^0 gamma)=(7.01 +/- 0.10 +/- 0.20)x10^-5 and (7.12 +/- 0.13 +/- 0.22)x10^-5 respectively. We have also extracted the a_0(980) mass and its couplings to eta pi^0, K^+ K^-, and to the phi meson from the fit of the eta pi^0 invariant mass distributions using different phenomenological models.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Physics Letters B. Corrected typos in eq.