Observation of Orbitally Excited (Formula presented) States

The observation of a wide peaking structure in the (Formula presented) mass spectrum is reported using proton-proton collision data collected by the LHCb detector at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of (Formula presented). The statistical significance over the background-only hypothesis exceeds seven standard deviations. The width of the observed structure is larger than the expectation from a single-peak hypothesis, and is well described by an effective minimal model consisting of two narrow peaks located at (Formula presented) and (Formula presented). The uncertainty terms are statistical, systematic, and associated to the knowledge of the (Formula presented) mass, respectively. The measured peak locations are in line with theoretical predictions for lowest excited (Formula presented)-wave (Formula presented) states, marking the first observation of orbitally excited beauty-charm mesons and providing important insights into the internal dynamics of hadrons containing two heavy quarks.