Observation of $\overline{B} \to D^{(*)} \pi^+\pi^- \ell^-\overline{\nu}$ decays in $e^+e^-$ collisions at the $\Upsilon(4S)$ resonance

Abstract

We report on measurements of the decays of $\overline{B}$ mesons into the semileptonic final states $\overline{B} \to D^{(*)} \pi^+\pi^- \ell^-\overline{\nu}$, where $D^{(*)}$ represents a $D$ or $D^*$ meson and $\ell^-$ is an electron or a muon. These measurements are based on $471\times 10^6$ $B\overline{B}$ pairs recorded with the $BABAR$ detector at the SLAC asymmetric $B$ Factory PEP-II. We determine the branching fraction ratios $R^{(*)}_{\pi^+\pi^-} = \mathcal{B}(\overline{B} \to D^{(*)} \pi^+\pi^- \ell^- \overline{\nu})/\mathcal{B}(\overline{B} \to D^{(*)} \ell^-\overline{\nu})$ using events in which the second $B$ meson is fully reconstructed. We find $R_{\pi^+\pi^-} = 0.067 \pm 0.010 \pm 0.008$ and $R^*_{\pi^+\pi^-} = 0.019 \pm 0.005 \pm 0.004$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. Based on these results, we estimate that $\overline{B} \to D^{(*)}\pi\pi\ell^-\overline{\nu}$ decays, where $\pi$ denotes both a $\pi^\pm$ and $\pi^0$ meson, account for up to half the difference between the measured inclusive semileptonic branching fraction to charm hadrons and the corresponding sum of previously measured exclusive branching fractions.