Phenomenology of charmless hadronic B decays

The decays of $B$ mesons to a pair of charmless pseudoscalar mesons ($PP$ decays) or to a vector and pseudoscalar meson ($VP$ decays) have been analyzed within the framework of flavor SU(3) symmetry and the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism of CP violation. Separate $PP$ and $VP$ fits proved to be successful in describing the experimental data (branching ratios, CP asymmetries and time-dependent parameters). Decay magnitudes and relative weak and strong phases have been extracted from the fits. Values of the weak phase $\gamma$ were found to be consistent with the current indirect bounds from other analyses of CKM parameters.Comment: Talk presented at the Sixth International Conference on Hyperons, Charm and Beauty Hadrons, IIT, Chicago, June 27 - July 3, 200