Search for $D_{s}^{*+} \to D_{s}^{+} e^{+} e^{-}$ Decays*

We search for the decay $D_{s}^{*+} \to D_{s}^{+} e^{+} e^{-}$ in data collected with the CLEO-c detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) operating at a center of mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$= 4170 MeV. At this energy, $D_{s}^{\pm} D_{s}^{*\mp}$ pairs are produced with a cross section of 1 nb. In this search we reconstruct the $D_{s}^{*+}$ decay using several exclusive hadronic $D_{s}^{+}$ final states. The $D_{s}^{*+} \to D_{s}^{+} e^{+} e^{-}$ branching fraction is expected to be about 1\%, which is comparable to the rate of the background from conversions in the detector of the photons from the dominant $D_{s}^{*+} \to D_{s}^{+} \gamma$ channel. The selection criteria used to distinguish our signal from this external conversion background motives an accurate reconstruction of the soft electron-positron pair in the final state, which is a challenging aspect of our analysis.