Measurement of branching fractions for two-body charmless B decays to charged pions and kaons at BABAR

We present preliminary results of a search for charmless two-body B decays to charged pions and kaons using data collected by the BABAR detector at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's PEP-II storage ring. In a sample of 8.8 million produced B-anti-B pairs we measure the branching fractions B(B^0 --> pi^+pi^-) = (9.3^{+2.6}_{-2.3}^{+1.2}_{-1.4}) x 10^{-6} and B(B^0 --> K^+\pi^-) = (12.5^{+3.0}_{-2.6}^{+1.3}_{-1.7}) x 10^{-6}, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. For the decay B^0 --> K^+K^- we find no significant signal and set an upper limit of B(B^0 --> K^+K^-) 6.6 x 10^{-6} at the 90% confidence level

Measurement of the time dependence of B0−Bˉ0B^{0}-\bar B^{0} oscillations using inclusive dilepton events

A preliminary study of time dependence of B^0-anti-B^0 oscillations using dilepton events is presented. The flavor of the B meson is determined by the charge sign of the lepton. To separate signal leptons from cascade and fake leptons we have used a method which combines several discriminating variables in a neural network. The time evolution of the oscillations is studied by reconstructing the time difference between the decays of the B mesons produced by the Y(4S) decay. With an integrated luminosity of 7.7 fb-1 collected on resonance by BABAR at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory, we measure the difference in mass of the neutral B eigenstates, Delta_mB0 to be (0.507+/-0.015+/-0.022) x 10^{12} hbar-s^{-1}

Measurements of charmless three-body and quasi-two-body B decays

We present preliminary results of a search for several exclusive charmless hadronic B decays from electron-positron annihilation data collected by the BABAR detector near the Y(4S) resonance. These include three-body decay modes with final states h^{+/-}h^{-/+}h^{+/-} and h^{+/-}h^{-/+}pi^0, and quasi-two-body decay modes with final states X^0 h and X^0 K0S, where h = pi or K and X^0 = eta^' or omega. We find B(B^0 --> rho^(-/+)pi^(+/-)) = (49+/-13^{+6}_{-5}) x 10^{-6} and B(B^+ --> eta^' K^+) = (62+/-18+/-8) x 10^{-6} and present upper limits for eight other decays

The first year of the BABAR experiment at PEP-II

The BABAR detector, situated at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric e^+e^- collider, has been recording data at energies on and around the Upsilon(4S) resonance since May 1999. In this paper, we briefly describe the PEP-II B Factory and the BABAR detector. The performance presently achieved by the experiment in the areas of tracking, vertexing, calorimetry and particle identification is reviewed. Analysis concepts that are used in the various papers submitted to this conference are also discussed

A study of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in B0→J/ψKS0B^{0} \to J/\psi K^{0}_{S} and B0→ψ(2S)KS0B^{0} \to \psi(2S) K^{0}_{S} decays

We present a preliminary measurement of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in B0 -> J/psi K0S and B0 -> psi(2S) K0S decays recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy B Factory at SLAC. The data sample consists of 9.0 fb-1 collected at the Y(4S) resonance and 0.8 fb-1 off-resonance. One of the neutral B mesons, produced in pairs at the Y(4S), is fully reconstructed. The flavor of the other neutral B meson is tagged at the time of its decay, mainly with the charge of identified leptons and kaons. A neural network tagging algorithm is used to recover events without a clear lepton or kaon tag. The time difference between the decays is determined by measuring the distance between the decay vertices. Wrong-tag probabilities and the time resolution function are measured with samples of fully-reconstructed semileptonic and hadronic neutral B final states. The value of the asymmetry amplitude, sin2beta, is determined from a maximum likelihood fit to the time distribution of 120 tagged B0 -> J/psi K0S and B0 -> psi(2S) K0S candidates to be sin2beta = 0.12+/-0.37 (stat) +/- 0.09 (syst) (preliminary)

Measurement of the B0B^{0} meson properties using partially reconstructed B0→D∗−π+B^{0} \to D^{*-}\pi^{+} and B0→D∗−l+νB^{0} \to D^{*-}l^{+}\nu decay with the BABAR detector

The two B^0 decay processes B^0 --> D^{*-}pi^+ and B^0 --> D^{*-}l^+nu have been studied by means of a partial reconstruction technique using a data sample collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage ring. To increase statistics, only the soft pi^- from the decay D^{*-} --> pi^-D^0 was used in association with either an oppositely-charged high-momentum pion or lepton. Events were then identified by exploiting the constraints from the simple kinematics of Y(4S) decays. A clear signature is obtained in each case. The position of the B^0 decay point was obtained from the reconstructed pi^+(l^+)pi^- vertex. The position of the other anti-B^0 in the event was also determined. Taking advantage of the boost given to the Y(4S) system by the asymmetric beam energies of PEP-II, the lifetime of the B^0 meson has been measured from the separation distance between the two vertices along the beam direction. The preliminary results are tau_B0 = 1.55+/-0.05+/-0.07 ps, tau_B0 = 1.62+/-0.02+/-0.09 ps, respectively for the B^0 --> D^{*-}pi^+ and B^0 --> D^{*-}l^+nu channels