Observation of Photon Polarization in the b → sγ Transition
Author(s)
Counts, Ian Thomas Hunt; Williams, Michael; Ilten, Philip J
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This Letter presents a study of the flavor-changing neutral current radiative B[superscript ±] → K[superscript ±]π[superscript ∓]π[superscript ±]γ decays performed using data collected in proton-proton collisions with the LHCb detector at 7 and 8 TeV center-of-mass energies. In this sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb[superscript −1], nearly 14 000 signal events are reconstructed and selected, containing all possible intermediate resonances with a K[superscript ±]π[superscript ∓]π[superscript ±] final state in the [1.1, 1.9] GeV/c[superscript 2] mass range. The distribution of the angle of the photon direction with respect to the plane defined by the final-state hadrons in their rest frame is studied in intervals of K[superscript ±]π[superscript ∓]π[superscript ±] mass and the asymmetry between the number of signal events found on each side of the plane is obtained. The first direct observation of the photon polarization in the b → sγ transition is reported with a significance of 5.2σ.
Date issued
2014-04Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear ScienceJournal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Aaij, R., B. Adeva, M. Adinolfi, A. Affolder, Z. Ajaltouni, J. Albrecht, F. Alessio, et al. “Observation of Photon Polarization in the b → sγ Transition.” Physical Review Letters 112, no. 16 (April 2014). © 2014 CERN, for the LHCb Collaboration
Version: Final published version
ISSN
0031-9007
1079-7114