We report a search for charmless hadronic decays of neutral $B$ mesons to $eta K^{*}(892)^{0}$. The results are based on a 711fb$^{-1}$ data sample that contains $772times 10^6 Boverline{B}$ pairs, collected at the $Upsilon(4S)$ resonance with the Be
lle detector at the KEKB asymmetric energy $e^+e^-$ collider. We observe the decay for the first time with a significance of 5.0 standard deviations and obtain its branching fraction ${cal B}[B^0toeta K^{*}(892)^{0}]=[2.6pm0.7{rm (stat)}pm0.2{rm (syst)}]times 10^{-6}$. We also measure the $CP$ violating asymmetry as ${cal A}_{CP}[B^0toeta K^{*}(892)^{0}]=-0.22pm0.29{rm (stat)}pm0.07{rm syst}$.
We search for CP violation in neutral charm meson decays using a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 966 fb^-1 collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB e+e- asymmetric-energy collider. The asymmetry obtained in the rate of D^0 and D^0-b
ar decays to the pi^0 pi^0 final state, [-0.03+-0.64(stat)+-0.10(syst)]%, is consistent with no CP violation. This constitutes an order of magnitude improvement over the existing result. We also present an updated measurement of the CP asymmetry in the D^0 -> K_S pi^0 decay: A_{CP}(D^0 -> K_S pi^0) = [-0.21+-0.16(stat)+-0.07(syst)]%.
We search for bottomonium states in Upsilon(2S)-> (bb-bar) gamma decays with an integrated luminosity of 24.7fb^-1 recorded at the Upsilon(2S) resonance with the Belle detector at KEK, containing (157.8+-3.6) X 10^6 Upsilon(2S) events. The (bb-bar) s
ystem is reconstructed in 26 exclusive hadronic final states composed of charged pions, kaons, protons, and K^0_S mesons. We find no evidence for the state recently observed around 9975 MeV (X_(bb-bar)) in an analysis based on a data sample of 9.3 X 10^6 Upsilon(2S) events collected with the CLEO III detector. We set a 90 % confidence-level upper limit on the branching fraction B[Upsilon(2S)-> X_(bb-bar) gamma] X sum_i{B[X_(bb-bar)-> h_i]}< 4.9 X 10^-6, summed over the exclusive hadronic final states employed in our analysis. This result is an order of magnitude smaller than the measurement reported with CLEO data. We also set an upper limit for the eta_b(1S) state of B[Upsilon(2S)-> eta_b(1S) gamma] X sum_i{B[eta_b(1S)-> h_i]}< 3.7 X 10^-6.
We report a search for charmless hadronic decays of neutral B mesons to the final state K+K-pi0. The results are based on a 711 fb^-1 data sample that contains 772x10^6 BB-bar pairs, and was collected at the Y(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at
the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider. We find the first evidence for this decay with a significance of 3.5 standard deviations and measure its branching fraction as BF(B0 --> K+K-pi0) = [2.17 +/- 0.60(stat) +/- 0.24 (syst)]x10^-6.
High moments of multiplicity distributions of conserved quantities are predicted to be sensitive to critical fluctuations. To understand the effect of the complicated non-critical physics backgrounds on the proposed observable, we have studied variou
s moments of net-proton distributions with AMPT, Hijing, Therminator and UrQMD models, in which no QCD critical point physics is implemented. It is found that the centrality evolution of various moments of net-proton distributions can be uniformly described by a superposition of emission sources. In addition, in the absence of critical phenomena, some moment products of net-proton distribution, related to the baryon number susceptibilities ratio in Lattice QCD calculation, are predicted to be constant as a function of the collision centrality. We argue that a non-monotonic dependence of the moment products as a function collision centrality and the beam energy may be used to locate the QCD critical point.
