Observation of a New Charmed Baryon ARGUS Collaboration
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Physics Letters B 317 (1993) 227-232 PHYSICS LETTERS B North-Holland Observation of a new charmed baryon ARGUS Collaboration H. Albrecht, H. Ehrlichmann, T. Hamacher, R.P. Hofmann, T. Kirchhoff, A. Nau, S. Nowak 1, H. Schr6der, H.D. Schulz, M. Walter 1, R. Wurth DESY, Hamburg, Germany C. Hast, H. Kapitza, H. Kolanoski, A. Kosche, A. Lange, A. Lindner, R. Mankel, M. Schieber, T. Siegmund, B. Spaan, H. Thurn, D. T6pfer, D. Wegener Institut far Physik2, Universitdt Dortmund, Germany M. Bittner, P. Eckstein Institut far Kern- und Teilchenphysik 3, Technische Universitiit Dresden, Germany M. Paulini, K. Reim, H. Wegener Physikalisches Institut4, Universitiit Erlangen-Nfirnberg, Germany R. Eckrnann, R. Mundt, T. Oest, R. Reiner, W. Schmidt-Parzefall II. Institut far Experimentalphysik, Universitiit Hamburg, Germany J. Stiewe, S. Werner Institut far Hochenergiephysik 5, UniversitZit Heidelberg, Germany K. Ehret, W. Hofmann, A. Hiipper, S. Khan, K.T. Kn6pfle, M. Seeger, J. Spengler Max-Planck-Institut far Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany D.I. Britton 6, C.E.K. Charlesworth 7, K.W. Edwards s, E.R.F. Hyatt 6, P. Krieger 7, D.B. MacFarlane 6, P.M. Patel 6, J.D. Prentice 7, P.R.B. Saull 6, K. Tzarnariudaki 6, R.G. Van de Water 7, T.-S. Yoon 7 Institute of Particle Physics 9, Canada D. ReBing, M. Schmidtler, M. Schneider, K.R. Schubert, K. Strahl, R. Waldi, S. Weseler lnstitut far Experimentelle Kernphysik l°, Universitiit Karlsruhe, Germany G. Kernel, P. Kri~an, E. Kri~ni~, T. Podobnik, T. ~.ivko Institut J. Stefan and Oddelek za fiziko II, Univerza v LjubljanL Ljubljana, Slovenia V. Balagura, I. Belyaev, S. Chechelnitsky, M. Danilov, A. Droutskoy, Yu. Gershtein, A. Golutvin, I. Korolko, G. Kostina, D. Litvintsev, V. Lubimov, P. Pakhlov, S. Semenov, 0370-2693/93/$ 06.00 t~ 1993-Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved 227 Volume 317, number 1,2 PHYSICS LETTERS B 4 November 1993 A. Snizhko, I. Tichomirov and Yu. Zaitsev Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia Received 20 August 1993 Editor: K. Winter Using the ARGUS detector at the e+e - storage ring DORIS II at DESY, we have observed a new charmed baryon state in the channel A + n + 7t-. (All references to a specific charged state also imply the charge conjugate state.) The mass of this state was measured to be (2626.6 + 0.5 + 1.5) MeV/c 2. The product of the production cross section and branching ratio for this channel was determined to be (11.5 4- 2.5 -4- 3.0) pb, and the natural width estimated to be smaller than 3.2 MeV/c 2 at 90% CL. Substantial progress has been made in charmed choice of channel is justified because an excited Ac + baryon physics during the last decade. Production state would decay strongly into either A + 7t + 7t- or of the A + in e+e - annihilations was first observed 27c7t but not into Ac+ n, which is forbidden by isospin by the MARK II Collaboration [ 1 ], followed by the conservation. neutral and doubly charged isospin partners 27° and Since the pioneering work by De Rdjula, Georgi 27~++ of the 27c isotriplet observed by the ARGUS and Glashow [ 6 ] a number of models have been de- [2] collaboration, and the ,~o and ~+, seen by the veloped to provide explicit predictions for the masses CLEO [3] and ARGUS [4] collaborations. Last year of excited charmed baryons [7-10]. An experimental the ARGUS collaboration reported the first evidence verification is, however, up to now missing. for the doubly strange charmed baryon/20 in e + e- The data used in this analysis were collected using annihilations [5]. Thus, most ground state baryons the ARGUS detector at the DORIS II storage ring at containing one c-quark have been established. Here DESY, comprising an integrated luminosity of about we present a search for an excited charmed baryon 385 pb -l taken on the T(4S) resonance and in the resonance A~ + in the final state A~+n+n-. This nearby continuum. The ARGUS detector is a 4n mag- netic spectrometer. Its trigger requirements and par- l DESY, IfH Zeuthen. ticle identification capabilities are described in detail 2 Supported by the German Bundesministerium fiir elsewhere [ 11 ]. Forschung und Technologie under contract number Only multihadron events were selected, these be- 054DO51P. ing defined as having at least three tracks with either 3 Supported by the German Bundesministerium fiir a common vertex or a total energy deposition in the Forschung und Technologie, under contract number 055DD11P. shower counters of more than 1.7 GeV. Charged tracks 4 Supported by the German Bundesministerium fiir were required to originate from the main interaction Forschung und Technologie under contract number region with a polar angle 0 in the range Icos(0)l < 054ERI2P. 0.92, and momenta transverse to the beam direction Bundesministerium ffir 5 Supported by the German greater than 60 MeV/c. The particle identification Forschung und Technologic under contract number 055HD21P. procedure was based on a combined likelihood ratio 6 McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. calculated from the measurements of specific ioniza- 7 University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. tion and time-of-flight for allowed mass hypotheses s Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (e,l~,Tt, K and p) [11]. A particle was treated as a 9 Supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Re- pion, kaon or proton if the corresponding likelihood search Council Canada. ratio exceeded 1%, 5% and 15%, respectively. Such 10 Supported by the German Bundesministerium fdr Forschung und Technologic under contract number cuts were chosen to obtain an optimal signal to back- 054KA17P. ground ratio for the A + as well as to suppress possible iI Supported by the Department of Science and Technology reflections from charmed mesons to a negligible level. of the Republic of Slovenia and the Internationales Btiro A ° (K°) candidates were defined as pTt- (n+Tt -) KfA, Jiilich. 228 Volume 317, number 1,2 PHYSICS LETTERS B 4 November 1993 pairs forming secondary vertices. A mass constraint Table 1 Summary of results from fitting the Ac+Tt+Tr- invariant fit was applied to each combination having an invari- mass spectrum with different xp cuts. ant mass within +10 (4-30) MeV/c 2 of the nominal A°(K °) mass [12], and those with a Z 2 of less than xp > Mass (MeV/c 2) a (MeV/c 2) Entries 25 were used in the subsequent analysis. In addition the angle ~ between the A ° (Ks°) flight direction and 0.4 2626.7 4- 0.6 2.3 4- 0.5 45.6 + I0.1 0.5 2626.6 4- 0.5 2.2 4- 0.5 42.4 4- 8.8 the vector pointing from the main vertex to the decay 0.6 2626.7 + 0.5 2.1 4- 0.4 34.9 4- 7.5 vertex was required to satisfy cosa > 0.95 (0,9). The A + baryon was reconstructed in four de- cay modes - pK-rt +, pK °, A°n +, and A°n+rt+Tt -. Each combination with an invariant mass lying a Gaussian with free width and position to represent within 4-25 MeV/c 2 for pK-n + and A°n+n+It -, the signal. The fit resulted in 42.4 4- 8.8 events at 4-30 MeV/c 2 for pK ° and 4-40 MeV/c 2 for A°n + of a mass of (2626.6 4- 0.5) MeV/c 2 with a width of the nominal A + mass [12] was subjected to a mass a = (2.2 4- 0.5) MeV/c 2. This is consistent with the constraint fit to improve the momentum resolution. expected detector resolution of (2.6 4- 0.1 ) MeV/c 2 Every A + candidate was then combined with all determined from a Monte Carlo simulation. The mass n+~t- pairs in an event. Charmed baryons are ex- and width of the signal proved to he stable against a pected to be products of the initial charm quark variation of the xp cut. The results of the fits obtained fragmentation process, so they should possess rather with different xr cuts are summarized in table 1. large momenta, in contrast to the combinatorial In addition to studies of the A + sideband spec- background. Therefore the scaled momentum xp tra, a close examination of various reflection sources of all Ac+rt+zt - combinations was required to be has shown that the signal cannot be artificially gener- greater than 0.5, where xp = p (A+n+lr -)/pmax and ated. For example, it is possible that a slow pion com- Pmax = x/E2am - M2(A+~+~-). bined with the final states 27+ + ~ A~+ tr + or 27o The resulting A + u + u- invariant mass spectrum is A+n - could lead to a contribution in the signal re- presented in fig. 1. A narrow peak at a mass of about gion. To check this, so-called wrong charge combina- 2627 MeV/c 2 is observed, while the distribution for tions - A + tr-~- and A+ ~r+Tr + have been studied. No artificial A + ~z+ x- combinations built up from the A + enhancements in the signal range have been seen in sidebands shows a more or less smooth behaviour in both spectra. A Monte Carlo simulation of the pro- this region. The spectrum was fit with a background tess e+e - ~ ZcX supported this conclusion. Multi- function consisting of a second order polynomial and ple counting has also been studied and was found to be negligibly small and distributed uniformily over a wide range of the A + 7r + tr- invariant mass.