Study Of The Rare Charmless Hadronic B Meson Decays B Zero To Phi K Zero And B Zero To K Star Plus Pi Minus

This thesis describes the analyses of the rare charmless hadronic B meson decays B[sup 0] [yields] [phi]K[sup 0] and B[sup 0] [yields] K*[sup +][pi][sup -], using 20.58 fb[sup -1] of e[sup +]e[sup -] data taken at the [Upsilon](4S) resonance. The data were taken with the BABAR detector during its first run at the PEP-II asymmetric e[sup +]e[sup -] collider. Measurements of these modes using a counting technique are presented with the branching fractions [Beta](B[sup 0] [yields] [phi]K[sup 0]) = (9.3 [+-] 3.4(stat.) [+-] 1.1(syst.)) x 10[sup -6] with a significance of 4.9[sigma], and [Beta](B[sup 0] [yields] K*[sup +][pi][sup -]) = (20.8 [+-] 9.3(stat.) [+-] 2.1(syst.)) x 10[sup -6] with a significance of 3.0[sigma]. For the latter, an upper limit of [Beta](B[sup 0] [yields] K*[sup +][pi][sup -])