Study of Charged Particle Species Produced in Association with $\bar{B}$<sup>0</sup>, B<sup>-</sup>, and $\bar{B}$$0\atop{s}$ Mesons in p$\bar{p}$ collisions at √s = 1.96-TeV

Abstract

The authors study the yields of charged kaons, charged pions, and protons produced in association with B mesons produced in proton-antiproton collisions at center of mass energy 1960 GeV using 355 pb{sup -1} of data collected with the CDF detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. This is the first reported measurements of these yields at a hadron collider. The B mesons are reconstructed using their semileptonic decays: B{sup 0} {yields} {ell}{sup +}D{sup -}X, D{sup -} {yields} K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup -}; B{sup 0} {yields} {ell}{sup +}D*{sup -}X, D*{sup -} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{bar D}{sup 0},{bar D}{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}; B{sup +} {yields} {ell}{sup +}{bar D}{sup 0}X, {bar D}{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}; B{sub s}{yields}{ell}{sup +}D{sub s}{sup -}X, D{sub s}{sup -} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{phi},{phi} {yields} K{sup +}K{sup -}. The K, {pi}, and p are identified using the Time of Flight detector (TOF), the CDF spectrometer, and the specific ionization (dE/dx) measured in the central drift chamber (COT). The fraction of charged kaons produced in association with {bar B}{sub s}{sup 0} mesons is found to be larger than the fraction produced in association with the {bar B}{sup 0} and B{sup -} mesons, as expected from naive models of heavy quark hadronization tomore » mesons. The particle species yields are found to be in qualitative agreement with simulation of B meson production in hadron collisions from the PYTHIA Monte Carlo, although the yield of kaons around {bar B}{sub s}{sup 0} mesons is found to be larger in the simulation when compared to the data. These studies are important for understanding methods of identifying the flavor of {bar B}{sub s}{sup 0} mesons in measurement of {bar B}{sub s}{sup 0} flavor oscillations and charge conjugation-parity (CP) violation in {bar B}{sub s}{sup 0} meson decays.« less