First Observation of Heavy Baryons \Sigma_b and \Sigma_b^*

Abstract

We report an observation of new bottom baryons produced in proton-antiproton collisions at the Tevatron. Using 1.1 fb^{-1} of data collected by the CDF II detector, we observe four \Lambda_b^0\pi^{\pm} resonances in the fully reconstructed decay mode \Lambda_b^0 \to \Lambda_c^+ \pi^-, where \Lambda_c^+ \to p K^- \pi^+. We interpret these states as the \Sigma_b^{(*)\pm} baryons and measure the following masses: m_{\Sigma_b^+} = 5807.8^{+2.0}_{-2.2}(stat.) \pm 1.7(syst.) MeV/c^2, m_{\Sigma_b^-} = 5815.2 \pm 1.0(stat.) \pm 1.7(syst.) MeV/c^2, and m(\Sigma_b^*) - m(\Sigma_b) = 21.2^{+2.0}_{-1.9}(stat.) ^{+0.4}_{-0.3}(syst.) MeV/c^2.