Analysis of the rare decay B->K*ee at LHCb

The high bb cross section produced by the LHC offers an excellent opportunity for thestudy of flavour changing neutral current B decays, where the effects of new physics can be probed. This thesis presents an analysis of the rare decay B->Kee which can be used to measure the polarisation of the photon in the b -> s transition. When the dilepton mass is low, the ee pair comes predominantly from a virtual photon, and the polarisation can be accessed via an angular analysis. It is predicted to be predominantly left handed in the Standard Model, and therefore an enhanced right handed amplitude would be a sign of new physics. A first step is to measure the branching fraction in the dilepton mass range, 30 MeV to 1 GeV. This decay has not yet been observed in this region, due to its small branching ratio. The analysis involves electrons with low transverse momentum, and is thus experimentally complex in the hadronic environment at the LHC. The branching ratio is measured relative to that of B->J/Psi(ee)K, which eliminates both certain experimental effects, and the need to determine absolute effciencies. The result is obtained with an integrated luminosity of 1 fb-1 of pp collisions, collected by LHCb during 2011 and is found to be:B(B->Kee)30-1000MeV = (3:19+0:75-0:68(stat) +/- 0:21(syst) =/-0.15(PDG) x10-7 when using the PDG value for the B->J/Psi(ee)K branching ratio. The last part of the thesis presents Monte Carlo studies, showing that with the inclusion of the 2012 data sample, the expected sensitivity on the fraction of right handed polarisation is approximately 0.1, which is comparable with the world average obtained with different methods.

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Source https://theses.hal.science/tel-00815968
Author Nicol, Michelle
Maintainer CCSD
Last Updated May 11, 2026, 09:35 (UTC)
Created May 11, 2026, 09:35 (UTC)
Identifier NNT: 2012PA112354
Language en
Rights https://about.hal.science/hal-authorisation-v1/
contributor Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire (LAL) ; Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
creator Nicol, Michelle
date 2012-12-05T00:00:00
harvest_object_id 9aa44cae-a941-456c-9e20-f201e16a4e35
harvest_source_id 3374d638-d20b-4672-ba96-a23232d55657
harvest_source_title test moissonnage SELUNE
metadata_modified 2026-04-16T00:00:00
set_spec type:THESE