Observation of charmless baryonic decays B(s)0→pp¯h+h′−

2017

Decays of B0 and Bs0 mesons to the charmless baryonic final states pp¯h+h′-, where h and h′ each denote a kaon or a pion, are searched for using the LHCb detector. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collision data collected at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3  fb-1. Four-body charmless baryonic Bs0 decays are observed for the first time. The decays Bs0→pp¯K+K-, Bs0→pp¯K±π∓, B0→pp¯K±π∓ and B0→pp¯π+π- are observed with a significance greater than 5 standard deviations; evidence at 4.1 standard deviations is found for the B0→pp¯K+K- decay and an upper limit is set on the branching fraction for Bs0→pp¯π+π-. Branching fraction…