A search for D0-D0bar mixing and doubly-Cabibbo-suppressed decays of the D0 in hadronic final states

The Fermilab E791 Collaboration

Published 1996-08-29, updated 1997-12-16Version 2

We present results of a search for D0-D0bar mixing and doubly-Cabibbo-suppressed decays of the D0 in Fermilab experiment E791, a fixed-target charm hadroproduction experiment. We look for evidence of mixing in the decay chain D* -> pi D0 -> (K pi or K pi pi pi). If the charge of the pion from the D* decay is the same as the charge of the kaon from the D decay (a ``wrong-sign'' event), mixing may have occurred. Mixing can be distinguished from other sources of wrong-sign events (such as doubly-Cabibbo-suppressed decays) by analyzing the distribution of decay times. We see no evidence of mixing. Allowing for possible CP violation, our results for r_{mix}, the ratio of mixed to unmixed decays, are r_{mix}(D0bar -> D0)=(0.18_{-0.39}^{+0.43} +- 0.17)% and r_{mix}(D0 -> D0bar)=(0.70_{-0.53}^{+0.58} +- 0.18)%. The sensitivity of these results is comparable to that of previous measurements, but the assumptions made in fitting the data are notably more general. We present results from many fits to our data under various assumptions. If we assume r_{mix} = 0, we find that the ratios of doubly Cabibbo-suppressed decays to Cabibbo-favored decays are r_{dcs}(K pi) =(0.68_{-0.33}^{+0.34} +- 0.07)% and r_{dcs}(K pi pi pi)=(0.25_{-0.34}^{+0.36} +- 0.03)%.