Search for rare quark-annihilation decays, B --> Ds(*) Phi

Abstract

We report on searches for B- --> Ds- Phi and B- --> Ds*- Phi. In the context of the Standard Model, these decays are expected to be highly suppressed since they proceed through annihilation of the b and u-bar quarks in the B- meson. Our results are based on 234 million Upsilon(4S) --> B Bbar decays collected with the BABAR detector at SLAC. We find no evidence for these decays, and we set Bayesian 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions BF(B- --> Ds- Phi) < 1.9x10^(-6) and BF(B- --> Ds*- Phi)<1.2x10^(-5). These results are consistent with Standard Model expectations.