Upper limits on beauty meson production in pi; − collisions at 280 GeV/c

• Published in: Physics letters. B 1983-01, Vol.124 (6), p.535-542
• Main Authors: Badier, J., Boucrot, J., Bourotte, J., Burgun, G., Callot, O., Charpentier, Ph, Crozon, M., Decamp, D., Delpierre, P., Gandois, B., Hagelberg, R., Hansroul, M., Karyotakis, Y., Kienzle, W., Le Dû, P., Lefrançois, J., Leray, Th, Maillard, J., Michelini, A., Miné, Ph, Rahal, G., Runolfsson, O., Siegrist, P., Tilquin, A., Valentin, J., Vanderhaghen, R., Weisz, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0370-2693; 1873-2445
• DOI: 10.1016/0370-2693(83)91569-1

From events with two like-sign muons, or with three or four muons, observed in the NA3 spectrometer with 280 GeV/c incoming π − beam, we deduce upper limits on the production of beauty meson pairs B B . We use the leptonic branching ratios of B meson measured at CESR storage rings, and assume that no nuclear effects occur in the platinum target. We find σ(B B) < 2 nb/nucleon for centrally produced B B < 10 nb/nucleon for a diffractive production. These values are one order of magnitude lower than previously published limits. As a consequence, the ψψ events observed in our experiment cannot come from B B decays.