Study of Exclusive Semileptonic B Meson Decays to Tau Leptons

Book excerpt: We present the results of a search for four exclusive semileptonic decays B & rarr; D(*)tau -nutau in 209 fb -1 of data collected with the BABAR detector, corresponding to 232 million e+e - & rarr; Upsilon(4S) & rarr; B B events. We select events with a D (*) meson and a light lepton (e or mu) recoiling against a fully-reconstructed B meson. We perform a fit to the lepton spectrum and missing mass squared to discriminate signal events from backgrounds, predominantly B & rarr; D (*) & ell;-nu & ell; . A control sample of identified D** & ell;- nu & ell; events is included in the fit to estimate the background contribution from these decays. We measure B (B & rarr; Dtaunu) = (0.86+/-0.24+/-0.11+/-0.06)% and B (B & rarr; D*taunu) = (1.62+/-0.31+/-0.10+/-0.05)%, where the errors are statistical, systematic, and normalization-mode related, respectively, and where the results are expressed for the B0 lifetime.