Study of<i>B</i>meson decays to three-body charmless hadronic final states

Abstract

We report results of a study of charmless B meson decays to three-body $K\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\pi},\mathrm{KK}\ensuremath{\pi}$ and $\mathrm{KKK}$ final states. Measurements of branching fractions for B decays to ${K}^{+(0)}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}},{K}^{+}{K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}},{K}^{0}{K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}},{K}^{+}{K}_{S}^{0}{K}_{S}^{0}$ and ${K}_{S}^{0}{K}_{S}^{0}{K}_{S}^{0}$ final states are presented. The decays ${B}^{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}^{0}{K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}},{B}^{+}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}^{+}{K}_{S}^{0}{K}_{S}^{0}$ and ${B}^{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{S}^{0}{K}_{S}^{0}{K}_{S}^{0}$ are observed for the first time. We also report evidence for ${B}^{+}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}$ decay. For the three-body final states ${K}^{0}{K}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}},{K}_{S}^{0}{K}_{S}^{0}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+},{K}^{+}{K}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${K}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+},$ 90% confidence level upper limits are reported. Finally, we discuss the possibility of using the three-body ${B}^{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{S}^{0}{K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ decay for $\mathrm{CP}$ violation studies. The results are obtained with a 78 ${\mathrm{fb}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ data sample collected at the $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}(4S)$ resonance by the Belle detector operating at the KEKB asymmetric energy ${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ collider.