Charm Spectroscopy at BaBar

We present a mini-review on charm spectroscopy at the BaBar experiment. We first report on the $c\bar{s}$ meson spectrum, and present precise measurements of the $D_{s1}(2536)$ meson as well as the properties of the many new states discovered since 2003 ($D_{s0}^*(2317)$, $D_{s1}(2460)$, $D_{sJ}^*(2860)$, and $D_{sJ}(2700)$ mesons). We then discuss about charmed baryons observed recently in the BaBar experiment: $\Omega_c^0$ and $\Omega_c^{*0}$ $css$ baryons, $\Lambda_c(2940)^+$ $udc$ baryon and the $\Xi_c$ $usc/dsc$ baryons.Comment: 8 pages, to be published in the proceedings of the XII International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy held at INFN, Frascati, Italy between October 8-13, 200

Measurement of the Branching Fractions of the Decays B -> Dbar^(*) D^(*) K

International audienceWe present a measurement of the branching fractions of the 22 decay channels B0 and B+ to Dbar^(*) D^(*) K, where Dbar^(*) and D^(*) are fully reconstructed. The B0 and B+ mesons are reconstructed in a sample of hadronic events for all the possible Dbar D K modes, namely B0 -> D^(*)- D^(*)0 K^+, D^(*)-D^(*)+ K^0, Dbar^(*)0 D^(*)0 K0 and B^+ -> Dbar^(*)0 D^(*)+ K0, Dbar^(*)0 D^(*)0 K+, D^(*)- D^(*)+ K+. The results are based on 423 fb-1 of data that contained 465 10^6 BBbar pairs collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the BaBar detector at the PEP-II B factory

A new look at the cosmic ray positron fraction

The positron fraction in cosmic rays was found to be a steadily increasing in function of energy, above $\sim$ 10 GeV. This behaviour contradicts standard astrophysical mechanisms, in which positrons are secondary particles, produced in the interactions of primary cosmic rays during the propagation in the interstellar medium. The observed anomaly in the positron fraction triggered a lot of excitement, as it could be interpreted as an indirect signature of the presence of dark matter species in the Galaxy. Alternatively, it could be produced by nearby astrophysical sources, such as pulsars. Both hypotheses are probed in this work in light of the latest AMS-02 positron fraction measurements. The transport of the primary and secondary positrons in the Galaxy is described using a semi-analytic two-zone model. MicrOMEGAs is used to model the positron flux generated by dark matter species. The description of the positron fraction from astrophysical sources is based on the pulsar observations included in the ATNF catalogue. We find that the mass of the favoured dark matter candidates is always larger than 500 GeV. The only dark matter species that fulfils the numerous gamma ray and cosmic microwave background bounds is a particle annihilating into four leptons through a light scalar or vector mediator, with a mixture of tau (75%) and electron (25%) channels, and a mass between 0.5 and 1 TeV. The positron anomaly can also be explained by a single astrophysical source and a list of five pulsars from the ATNF catalogue is given. Those results are obtained with the cosmic ray transport parameters that best fit the B/C ratio. Uncertainties in the propagation parameters turn out to be very significant. In the WIMP annihilation cross section to mass plane for instance, they overshadow the error contours derived from the positron data.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in A&A, corresponds to published versio

Observation of the Decay B^-→D_s^((*)+)K^-ℓ^-ν̅ _ℓ

We report the observation of the decay B^- → D_s^((*)+)K^-ℓ^-ν̅ _ℓ based on 342  fb^(-1) of data collected at the Υ(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e^+e^- storage rings at SLAC. A simultaneous fit to three D_s^+ decay chains is performed to extract the signal yield from measurements of the squared missing mass in the B meson decay. We observe the decay B^- → D_s^((*)+)K^-ℓ^-ν̅ _ℓ with a significance greater than 5 standard deviations (including systematic uncertainties) and measure its branching fraction to be B(B^- → D_s^((*)+)K^-ℓ^-ν̅ _ℓ)=[6.13_(-1.03)^(+1.04)(stat)±0.43(syst)±0.51(B(D_s))]×10^(-4), where the last error reflects the limited knowledge of the D_s branching fractions

Observation of the rare decay B+→K+π0π0 and measurement of the quasi-two-body contributions B+→K*(892)+π0, B+→f0(980)K+, and B+→χc0K+

We report an analysis of charmless hadronic decays of charged B mesons to the final state K+π0π0, using a data sample of (470.9±2.8)×106 BB̅ events collected with the BABAR detector at the Υ(4S) resonance. We observe an excess of signal events, with a significance above 10 standard deviations including systematic uncertainties, and measure the branching fraction and CP asymmetry to be B(B+→K+π0π0)=(16.2±1.2±1.5)×10-6 and ACP(B+→K+π0π0)=-0.06±0.06±0.04, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. Additionally, we study the contributions of the B+→K*(892)+π0, B+→f0(980)K+, and B+→χc0K+ quasi-two-body decays. We report the world’s best measurements of the branching fraction and CP asymmetry of the B+→K+π0π0 and B+→K*(892)+π0 channels