Observation of the $B_c^+ \to J/ψπ^+ π^0$ decay
The first observation of the $B_c^+ \to J/ψπ^+ π^0$ decay is reported with high significance using proton-proton collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9fb$^{-1}$, collected with the LHCb detector at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV. The ratio of its branching fraction relative to the $B_c^+ \to J/ψπ^+$ channel is measured to be $$ \frac{ {\cal{B}}( B_c^+ \to J/ψπ^+π^0 ) } { {\cal{B}}( B_c^+ \to J/ψπ^+ ) } = 2.80 \pm 0.15 \pm 0.11 \pm 0.16 \,, $$ where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third related to imprecise knowledge of the branching fractions for $B^+ \to J/ψK^{*+}$ and $B^+ \to J/ψK^+$ decays, which are used to determine the $π^0$ detection efficiency. The $π^+π^0$ mass spectrum is found to be consistent with the dominance of an intermediate $ρ^+$ contribution in accordance with a model based on QCD factorisation.