Minimal Flavour Violation and Beyond

Starting from the effective-theory framework for Minimal Flavour Violation, we give a systematic definition of next-to-minimal (quark) flavour violation in terms of a set of spurion fields exhibiting a particular hierarchy with respect to a small (Wolfenstein-like) parameter. A few illustrative examples and their consequences for charged and neutral decays with different quark chiralities are worked out in some detail. Our framework can be used as a model-independent classification scheme for the parameterization of flavour structure from physics beyond the Standard Model.Comment: 17 pages, no figures, phenomenological discussion extended, references adde

Subleading Jet Functions in Inclusive B Decays

The contribution of subleading jet functions to inclusive decay distributions of $B$ mesons are derived from a systematic two-step matching of QCD current correlators onto soft collinear and heavy quark effective theory. Focusing on the tree level matching of QCD onto soft collinear effective theory, the subleading jet functions are defined to all orders in $\alpha_s(\mu_i)$ (with $\mu_i^2\sim m_b\Lambda_{\rm QCD}$) and are calculated explicitly at first order in $\alpha_s(\mu_i)$. We present explicit expressions for the decay rates of $B\to X_u l \bar\nu$ and the $Q_{7\gamma}-Q_{7\gamma}$ contribution to $B\to X_s \gamma$, where the subleading jet functions are multiplied by a tree level hard function and appear in a convolution with the leading order shape function. Together with the recent two loop calculation of the leading order hard function for $B\to X_u l \bar\nu$, this paper will allow for a more precise description of inclusive B decays in the end point region.Comment: Minor changes: reference added, typos corrected, journal versio

Effect of FCNC mediated Z boson on lepton flavor violating decays

We study the three body lepton flavor violating (LFV) decays $\mu^- \to e^- e^+ e^-$, $\tau^- \to l_i^- l_j^+ l_j^-$ and the semileptonic decay $\tau \to \mu \phi$ in the flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) mediated $Z$ boson model. We also calculate the branching ratios for LFV leptonic B decays, $B_{d,s} \to \mu e$, $B_{d,s} \to \tau e$, $B_{d,s} \to \tau \mu$ and the conversion of muon to electron in Ti nucleus. The new physics parameter space is constrained by using the experimental limits on $\mu^- \to e^- e^+ e^-$ and $\tau^- \to \mu^- \mu^+ \mu^-$. We find that the branching ratios for $\tau \to eee$ and $\tau \to \mu \phi$ processes could be as large as $\sim {\cal O}(10^{-8})$ and ${\rm Br}B_{d,s} \to \tau \mu, \tau e) \sim {\cal O}(10^{-10})$. For other LFV B decays the branching ratios are found to be too small to be observed in the near future.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, typos corrected, one more section added, version to appear in EPJ