Study of Bc+ decays to the K+K-π+ final state and evidence for the decay Bc+ →χc0π+

Abstract

A study of Bc+→K+K-π+ decays is performed for the first time using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 fb-1 collected by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV. Evidence for the decay Bc+→χc0(→K+K-)π+ is reported with a significance of 4.0 standard deviations, giving σ(Bc+)σ(B+)×B(Bc+→χc0π+)=(9.8-3.0+3.4(stat)±0.8(syst))×10-6. Here B denotes a branching fraction while σ(Bc+) and σ(B+) are the production cross sections for Bc+ and B+ mesons. An indication of bc weak annihilation is found for the region m(K-π+)<1.834 GeV/c2, with a significance of 2.4 standard deviations.