B mesons are mesons composed of a bottom antiquark and either an up (B⁺), down (B⁰), strange (B0s) or charm quark (B+c). The combination of a bottom antiquark and a top quark is not thought to be possible because of the top quark's short lifetime. The combination of a bottom antiquark and a bottom quark is not a B meson, but rather bottomonium.

Each B meson has an antiparticle that is composed of a bottom quark and an up (B⁻), down (B⁰), strange (B0s) or charm antiquark (B−c) respectively. The neutral B mesons, B⁰ and B0s, spontaneously transform into their own antiparticles and back. This phenomenon is called flavor oscillation and has been measured in the B⁰/B⁰ system to be about 0.496 ps⁻¹,^[1] and in the B0s/B0s system to be 17.77 ± 0.17 ps⁻¹.^[2]

B mesons

Particle	Symbol	Anti-particle	Quark content	Isospin (I)	Spin and parity (JP)	Rest mass (MeV/c2)	S	C	B'	Mean lifetime (s)	Commonly decays to
B meson	B+	B−	ub	1⁄2	0−	5,279.15 ± 0.31	0	0	+1	1.638 ± 0.011 × 10−12	See B± decay modes
B meson	B0	B0	db	1⁄2	0−	5,279.53 ± 0.33	0	0	+1	1.530 ± 0.009 × 10−12	See B0 decay modes
Strange B meson	B0s	B0s	sb	0	0−	5,366.3 ± 0.6	−1	0	+1	1.470+0.027−0.026 × 10−12	See B0s decay modes
Charmed B meson	B+c	B−c	cb	0	0−	6,276 ± 4	0	+1	+1	0.46 ± 0.07 × 10−12	See B±c decay modes

[edit] References

1. ^ http://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/2066/26242/
2. ^ A. Abulencia et al., CDF Collaboration, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 242003 (2006).

[edit] External links

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• W.-M. Yao et al. (Particle Data Group), J. Phys. G 33, 1 (2006) and 2007 partial update for edition 2008 (URL: http://pdg.lbl.gov)

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