A search for the flavor-changing neutral-current decay $B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu\bar{\nu}$ is performed at the Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB asymmetric energy electron-positron collider. The results are based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $63\,\mbox{fb}^{-1}$ collected at the $\Upsilon{(4S)}$ resonance and a sample of $9\,\mbox{fb}^{-1}$ collected at an energy $60\mathrm{\,Me\kern -0.1em V}$ below the resonance. A novel measurement method is employed, which exploits topological properties of the $B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu\bar{\nu}$ decay that differ from both generic bottom-meson decays and light-quark pair production. This inclusive tagging approach offers a higher signal efficiency compared to previous searches. No significant signal is observed. An upper limit on the branching fraction of $B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu\bar{\nu}$ of $4.1 \times 10^{-5}$ is set at the 90% confidence level.
Yields in on-resonance data and as predicted by the simultaneous fit to the on- and off-resonance data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 63 and 9 fb$^{−1}$, respectively. The predicted yields are shown individually for charged and neutral B-meson decays and the five continuum background categories. The leftmost three bins belong to the first control region (CR1) with BDT$_{2} \in [0.93; 0.95]$ and the other nine bins correspond to the signal region (SR), three for each range of BDT$_{2} \in [0.95; 0.97; 0.99; 1.0]$. Each set of three bins is defined by $p_{T}(K^{+}) \in [0.5; 2.0; 2.4; 3.5] \rm{GeV}/c^{2}$.
Yields in off-resonance data and as predicted by the simultaneous fit to the on- and off-resonance data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 63 and 9 fb$^{−1}$, respectively. The predicted yields are shown individually for the five continuum background categories. The leftmost three bins belong to the third control region (CR3) with BDT$_{2} \in [0.93; 0.95]$ and the other nine bins correspond to the second control region (CR2), three for each range of BDT$_{2} \in [0.95; 0.97; 0.99; 1.0]$. Each set of three bins is defined by $p_{T}(K^{+}) \in [0.5; 2.0; 2.4; 3.5] \rm{GeV}/c^{2}$.
CL$_{s}$ value as a function of the branching fraction of $B^{+} \rightarrow K^{+} \nu \bar{\nu}$ for expected and observed signal yields and the corresponding upper limits at 90% confidence level (CL). The expected limit is derived for the background-only hypothesis. The observed limit is derived from a simultaneous fit to the on-resonance and off-resonance data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 63 fb$^{−1}$ and 9 fb$^{−1}$, respectively.
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