Book Description

Abstract: We present a search for the decay of the charged B meson into a charged lepton and a neutrino 458.9 million Upsilon(4S) decays recorded with the Babar detector at the SLAC PEP-II B-Factory. A sample of events with one reconstructed exclusive semileptonic B decay is selected, and in the recoil a search for the signal decay is performed. The tau lepton is identified in decays to an electron and two neutrinos; a muon and two neutrinos; a charged pion and a neutrino; or a charged pion, a neutral pion, and a neutrino. The analysis strategy and the statistical procedure is set up for branching fraction extraction or upper limit determination. We determine from the data set a preliminary measurement of the branching fraction a charged B decaying to a tau lepton and a neutrino = (1.8 " 0.8 " 0.1)E-4, which excludes zero at 2.4 standard deviations. We extract the B meson decay constant = 255 " 58 MeV. Combination with the hadronically tagged measurement yields (1.8 " 0.6)E-4. We also set preliminary limits on the branching fraction of charged B decaying to an electron and a neutrino at 7.7E-6 and the charged B decaying to a muon and a neutrino at 11E-6. The limits are at the 90% confidence level.