A Measurement of the Neutral B Meson Lifetime using Partially Reconstructed B0 --> D*-pi+ Decays

Abstract

The neutral B meson lifetime has been measured with the data collected by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage ring during the year 2000 for a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb-1. The B0 --> D*- pi+ decays have been selected with a partial reconstruction method in which only the fast pion from the B0 decay and the slow pion from D*- --> D0 bar pi- are reconstructed. The B0 lifetime has been measured to be 1.510 +/- 0.040 +/- 0.038 ps with a sample of 6971 +/- 241 reconstructed signal events.