Observation of charmless hadronic B decays

Four candidates for charmless hadronic B decay are observed in a data sample of four million hadronic Z decays recorded by the ALEPH detector at LEP. The probability that these events come from background sources is estimated to be less than 10(-6). The average branching of weakly decaying B hadrons (a mixture of B-d(0), B-s(0) and Lambda(b) weighted by their production The average branching ratio of weakly decaying B hadrons (a mixture of B-d(0) cross sections and lifetimes, here denoted B) into two long-lived charged hadrons (pions, kaons or protons) is measured to be Br(B-->h(+)h(-))=(1.7(-0.7)(+1.0)+/-0.2)x10(-5). The relative branching fraction Br(B-d(s)(0)-->pi(+)pi(-)(K-))/Br(B-d(s)(0)-->h(+)h(-)) is measured to be 1.0(-0.3-0.1)(+0.0+0.0). In addition, branching ratio upper limits are obtained for a variety of exclusive charmless hadronic two-body decays of B hadrons. RI ANTONELLI, ANTONELLA/C-6238-2011; Passalacqua, Luca/F-5127-2011; Murtas, Fabrizio/B-5729-2012; St.Denis, Richard/C-8997-2012; Sanchez, Federico/F-5809-2012; Forti, Francesco/H-3035-2011; Ferrante, Isidoro/F-1017-2012