Improved measurement of the CKM angle gamma in B^-+ -> D^(*) K^(*)-+ decays with a Dalitz plot analysis of D decays to K_S^0 pi^+ pi^- and K_S^0 K^+ K^-

Abstract

We report on an improved measurement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa {\it CP}-violating phase $\gamma$ through a Dalitz plot analysis of neutral $D$ meson decays to $K_S^0 \pi^+ \pi^-$ and $K_S^0 K^+ K^-$ in the processes $B^\mp \to D K^\mp$, $B^\mp \to D^* K^\mp$ with $D^* \to D\pi^0,D\gamma$, and $B^\mp \to D K^{*\mp}$ with $K^{*\mp} \to K_S^0 \pi^\mp$. Using a sample of 383 million $B\bar{B}$ pairs collected by the BABAR detector, we measure $\gamma=(76 \pm 22 \pm 5 \pm 5)^\circ$ (mod $180^\circ$), where the first error is statistical, the second is the experimental systematic uncertainty and the third reflects the uncertainty on the description of the Dalitz plot distributions. The corresponding two standard deviation region is $29^\circ < \gamma < 122^\circ$. This result has a significance of direct {\it CP} violation ($\gamma \ne 0$) of 3.0 standard deviations.