Mixing and Decay Constants of Pseudoscalar Mesons: The Sequel

We present further tests and applications of the new eta-eta' mixing scheme recently proposed by us. The particle states are decomposed into orthonormal basis vectors in a light-cone Fock representation. Because of flavor symmetry breaking the mixing of the decay constants can be identical to the mixing of particle states at most for a specific choice of this basis. Theoretical and phenomenological considerations show that the quark flavor basis has this property and allows, therefore, for a reduction of the number of mixing parameters. A detailed comparison with other mixing schemes is also presented.Comment: 9 page

Neutrino-Mass Hierarchies and Non-linear Representation of Lepton-Flavour Symmetry

Lepton-flavour symmetry in the Standard Model is broken by small masses for charged leptons and neutrinos. Introducing neutrino masses via dimension-5 operators associated to lepton-number violation at a very high scale, the corresponding coupling matrix may still have entries of order 1, resembling the situation in the quark sector with large top Yukawa coupling. As we have shown recently, in such a situation one may introduce the coupling matrices between lepton and Higgs fields as non-linear representations of lepton-flavour symmetry within an effective-theory framework. This allows us to separate the effects related to the large mass difference observed in atmospheric neutrino oscillations from those related to the solar mass difference. We discuss the cases of normal or inverted hierarchical and almost degenerate neutrino spectrum, give some examples to illustrate minimal lepton-flavour violation in radiative and leptonic decays, and also provide a systematic definition of next-to-minimal lepton-flavour violation within the non-linear framework.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur

Factorization in B -> K pi e+e- decays

We derive factorization relations for the transverse helicity amplitudes in the rare decays B-> K\pi l+l- at leading order in Lambda/m_b, in the kinematical region with an energetic kaon and a soft pion. We identify and compute a new contribution of leading order in Lambda/m_b to the B->K\pi l+l- amplitude, which is not present in the one-body decay B-> K*l+l-. As an application we study the forward-backward asymmetry (FBA) of the lepton momentum angular distribution in B-> K\pi l+l- decays away from the K* resonance. The FBA in these decays has a zero at q0^2 = q0^2(M_{Kpi}), which can be used, in principle, for determining the Wilson coefficients C_{7,9} and testing the Standard Model. We point out that the slope of the q0^2(M_{Kpi}^2) curve contains the same information about the Wilson coefficients as the location of the zero, but is less sensitive to unknown nonperturbative dynamics. We estimate the location of the zero at leading order in factorization, and using a resonant model for the B -> K\pi l+l- nonfactorizable amplitude.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures. Version to appear in Physical Review D. One new observable introduced and considered - the slope of the zero of the forward-backward asymmetry as function of the K\pi invariant mas

See-Saw Masses for Quarks and Leptons in SU(5)

We build on a recent paper by Grinstein, Redi and Villadoro, where a see-saw like mechanism for quark masses was derived in the context of spontaneously broken gauged flavour symmetries. The see-saw mechanism is induced by heavy Dirac fermions which are added to the Standard Model spectrum in order to render the flavour symmetries anomaly-free. In this letter we report on the embedding of these fermions into multiplets of an SU(5) grand unified theory and discuss a number of interesting consequences.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures (v3: outline restructured, modified mechanism to cancel anomalies

Factorization in exclusive semileptonic radiative B decays

We derive a new factorization relation for the semileptonic radiative decay B -> \pi \ell \nu \gamma in the kinematical region of a slow pion p_\pi ~ \Lambda and an energetic photon E_\gamma >> \Lambda, working at leading order in \Lambda/m_b. In the limit of a soft pion, the nonperturbative matrix element appearing in this relation can be computed using chiral perturbation theory. We present a phenomenological study of this decay, which may be important for a precise determination of the exclusive nonradiative decay.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; minor corrections, one reference adde

The decay pi0 to gamma gamma to next to leading order in Chiral Perturbation Theory

The two photon decay width of the neutral pion is analyzed within the combined framework of Chiral Perturbation Theory and the 1/Nc expansion up to order p^6 and p^4 times 1/Nc in the decay amplitude. The eta' is explicitly included in the analysis. It is found that the decay width is enhanced by about 4.5% due to the isospin-breaking induced mixing of the pure U(3) states. This effect, which is of leading order in the low energy expansion, is shown to persist nearly unchanged at next to leading order. The chief prediction for the width with its estimated uncertainty is 8.10+-0.08 eV. This prediction at the 1% level makes the upcomming precision measurement of the decay width even more urgent. Observations on the eta and eta' can also be made, especially about their mixing, which is shown to be significantly affected by next to leading order corrections.Comment: 21 pages, two figure

Charmless Two-body B(Bs)→VPB(B_s)\to VP decays In Soft-Collinear-Effective-Theory

We provide the analysis of charmless two-body $B\to VP$ decays under the framework of the soft-collinear-effective-theory (SCET), where $V(P)$ denotes a light vector (pseudoscalar) meson. Besides the leading power contributions, some power corrections (chiraly enhanced penguins) are also taken into account. Using the current available $B\to PP$ and $B\to VP$ experimental data on branching fractions and CP asymmetry variables, we find two kinds of solutions in $\chi^2$ fit for the 16 non-perturbative inputs which are essential in the 87 $B\to PP$ and $B\to VP$ decay channels. Chiraly enhanced penguins can change several charming penguins sizably, since they share the same topology. However, most of the other non-perturbative inputs and predictions on branching ratios and CP asymmetries are not changed too much. With the two sets of inputs, we predict the branching fractions and CP asymmetries of other modes especially $B_s\to VP$ decays. The agreements and differences with results in QCD factorization and perturbative QCD approach are analyzed. We also study the time-dependent CP asymmetries in channels with CP eigenstates in the final states and some other channels such as $\bar B^0/B^0\to\pi^\pm\rho^\mp$ and $\bar B_s^0/B_s^0\to K^\pm K^{*\mp}$. In the perturbative QCD approach, the $(S-P)(S+P)$ penguins in annihilation diagrams play an important role. Although they have the same topology with charming penguins in SCET, there are many differences between the two objects in weak phases, magnitudes, strong phases and factorization properties.Comment: 34 pages, revtex, 2 figures, published at PR

Branching ratios and CP asymmetries of B→Kη(′)B \to K \eta^{(\prime)} decays in the pQCD approach

We calculate the branching ratios and CP violating asymmetries of the four B \to K \etap decays in the perturbative QCD (pQCD) factorization approach. Besides the full leading order contributions, the partial next-to-leading order (NLO) contributions from the QCD vertex corrections, the quark loops, and the chromo-magnetic penguins are also taken into account. The NLO pQCD predictions for the CP-averaged branching ratios are $Br(B^+ \to K^+ \eta) \approx 3.2 \times 10^{-6}$, Br(B^\pm \to K^\pm \etar) \approx 51.0 \times 10^{-6}, $Br(B^0 \to K^0 \eta) \approx 2.1 \times 10^{-6}$, and Br(B^0 \to K^0 \etar) \approx 50.3 \times 10^{-6}. The NLO contributions can provide a 70% enhancement to the LO Br(B \to K \etar), but a 30% reduction to the LO $Br(B \to K \eta)$, which play the key role in understanding the observed pattern of branching ratios. The NLO pQCD predictions for the CP-violating asymmetries, such as \acp^{dir} (K^0_S \etar) \sim 2.3% and \acp^{mix}(K^0_S \etar)\sim 63%, agree very well with currently available data. This means that the deviation \Delta S=\acp^{mix}(K^0_S \etar) - \sin{2\beta} in pQCD approach is also very small.Comment: 31 pages, 11 ps/eps figures, typos corrected. A little modificatio