Evidence for the rare decay B → K*ℓ+ℓ- and measurement of the B → Kℓ+ℓ- branching fraction

We present evidence for the flavor-changing neutral current decay B-->K-*.(+).(-) and a measurement of the branching fraction for the related process B-->K.(+).(-), where .(+).(-) is either an e(+)e(-) or a mu(+)mu(-) pair. These decays are highly suppressed in the standard model, and they are sensitive to contributions from new particles in the intermediate state. The data sample comprises 123x10(6) Y(4S)-->B (B) over bar decays collected with the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II e(+)e(-) storage ring. Averaging over K-(*) isospin and lepton flavor, we obtain the branching fractions B(B-->Kl(+)l(-))=(0.65(-0.13)(+0.14)+/-0.04)x10(-6) and B(B-->K(*)l(+)l(-))=(0.88(-0.29)(+0.33)+/-0.10)x10(-6), where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. The significance of the B-->Kl(+)l(-) signal is over 8sigma, while for B-->K(*)l(+)l(-) it is 3.3sigma.