Measurements of the Absolute Branching Fractions of B^\pm --> K^\pm X_{c\bar c}

Abstract

We study the two-body decays of B^\pm mesons to K^\pm and a charmonium state, X_{c\bar c}, in a sample of 210.5 fb^{-1} of data from the BaBar experiment. We perform measurements of absolute branching fractions BR(B^\pm --> K^\pm X_{c\bar c}) using a missing mass technique, and report several new or improved results. In particular, the upper limit BR(B^\pm --> K^\pm X(3872))<3.2 10^-4 at 90% CL and the inferred lower limit BR(X(3872) --> J/ψπ^+π^-)>4.2% will help in understanding the nature of the recently discovered X(3872).