This article presents differential measurements of the asymmetry between Λb0 and Λ¯b0 baryon production rates in proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of s = 7 and 8 TeV collected with the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb−1. The Λb0 baryons are reconstructed through the inclusive semileptonic decay Λb0 → Λc+μ−ν¯ μX. The production asymmetry is measured both in intervals of rapidity in the range 2.15 < y < 4.10 and transverse momentum in 2 < pT< 27 GeV/c. The results are found to be incompatible with symmetric production with a significance of 5.8 standard deviations for both s = 7 and 8 TeV data, assuming no CP violation in the decay. There is evidence for a trend as a function of rapidity with a significance of 4 standard deviations. Comparisons to predictions from hadronisation models in Pythia and heavy-quark recombination are provided. This result constitutes the first observation of a particle-antiparticle asymmetry in b-hadron production at LHC energies.

Observation of a Λb0 − Λ¯b0 production asymmetry in proton-proton collisions at √s = 7 and 8 TeV

Brundu D.;Dettori F.;Manca G.;Oldeman R.;Saitta B.;
2021-01-01

Abstract

This article presents differential measurements of the asymmetry between Λb0 and Λ¯b0 baryon production rates in proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of s = 7 and 8 TeV collected with the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb−1. The Λb0 baryons are reconstructed through the inclusive semileptonic decay Λb0 → Λc+μ−ν¯ μX. The production asymmetry is measured both in intervals of rapidity in the range 2.15 < y < 4.10 and transverse momentum in 2 < pT< 27 GeV/c. The results are found to be incompatible with symmetric production with a significance of 5.8 standard deviations for both s = 7 and 8 TeV data, assuming no CP violation in the decay. There is evidence for a trend as a function of rapidity with a significance of 4 standard deviations. Comparisons to predictions from hadronisation models in Pythia and heavy-quark recombination are provided. This result constitutes the first observation of a particle-antiparticle asymmetry in b-hadron production at LHC energies.
2021
B physics; Hadron-Hadron scattering experiments; hard scattering; heavy quark production; proton-proton scattering;
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Aaij2021_Article_ObservationOfAΛb0VarLambdaB0ΛB.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: versione editoriale
Dimensione 1.14 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.14 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11584/323489
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 4
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 4
social impact