Search for the rare charmless hadronic decay B+→a+0π0

Abstract

We present a search for B decays to a charged scalar meson a + 0 and a π 0 where the a + 0 decays to an η meson and a π + . The analysis was performed on a data sample consisting of 383 × 10 6 B ¯¯¯ B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy B Factory at SLAC. We find no significant signal and set an upper limit on the product branching fraction B ( B + → a + 0 π 0 ) × B ( a + 0 → η π + ) of 1.4 × 10 − 6 at the 90% confidence level.