Search for $B$-meson decays to $b_1\rho$ and $b_1{K}^{*}$

We present a search for decays of $B$ mesons to final states with a $b_1$ meson and a $\rho$ or $K^{*}(892)$ meson. The search is based on a data sample consisting of 465 million $B\overline{B}$ pairs collected by the BABAR detector at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. We do not observe any statistically significant signal. The upper limits we set on the branching fractions range from 1.4 to $8.0\times {10}^{-6}$ at the 90% confidence level, including systematic uncertainties.

Figure 1

Projections onto $m_{\mathrm{ES}}$ for the modes (a) $b_1^{-}{\rho }^{+}$, (b) $b_1^0{\rho }^{+}$, (c) $b_1^{+}{\rho }^0$, (d) $b_1^0{\rho }^0$, (e) $b_1^{-}{K}_{K^{+}{\pi }^0}^{*+}$, (f) $b_1^0{K}_{K^{+}{\pi }^0}^{*+}$, (g) $b_1^{-}{K}_{K_S^0{\pi }^{+}}^{*+}$, (h) $b_1^0{K}_{K_S^0{\pi }^{+}}^{*+}$, (i) $b_1^{+}{K}^{*0}$, (j) $b_1^0{K}^{*0}$. Points with error bars represent the data, the solid (dashed) line represents the total (sum of the backgrounds) fitting function. The background is suppressed by a cut on $\ln \mathcal{L}$, optimized separately for each final state.