PNNL

Abstract

Using samples of 102 million _(1S) and 158 million _(2S) events collected with the Belle detector, we study exclusive hadronic decays of these two bottomonium resonances to the threebody final states fK+K-, ?p+p- and K*0(892)K-p+, and to the two-body Vector-Tensor states (ff' 2(1525), ?f2(1270), ?a2(1320) and K*0(892) ¯K*0 2 (1430)) and Axial-vector-Pseudoscalar (K1(1270)+K-, K1(1400)+K- and b1(1235)+p-) states. Signals are observed for the first time in the _(1S) ! fK+K-, ?p+p-, K*0K-p+, K*0K*0 2 and _(2S) ! fK+K-, K*0K-p+ decay modes. Branching fractions are determined for all the processes, while 90% confidence level upper limits are established on the branching fractions for the modes with a statistical significance less than 3s. The ratios of the branching fractions of _(2S) and _(1S) decays into the same final state are used to test a perturbative QCD prediction for OZI suppressed bottomonium decays.