New Physics Effects and Hadronic Form Factor Uncertainties in B -> K^* l^+ l^-

It is well known that New Physics can contribute to weak decays of heavy mesons via virtual processes during its decays. The discovery of New Physics, using such decays is made difficult due to intractable strong interaction effects needed to describe it. Modes such as B -> K^* l^+ l^- offer an advantage as they provide a multitude of observables via angular analysis. We show how the multitude of "related observables" obtained from B -> K^* l^+ l^-, can provide many new "clean tests" of the Standard Model. The hallmark of these tests is that several of them are independent of the unknown universal form factors in heavy quark effective theory. We derive a relation between observables that is free of form factors and Wilson coefficients, the violation of which will be an unambiguous signal of New Physics. We also derive relations between observables and form factors that are independent of Wilson coefficients and enable verification of hadronic estimates. We show how form factor ratios can be measured directly from helicity fraction with out any assumptions what so ever. We find that the allowed parameter space for observables is very tightly constrained in Standard Model, thereby providing clean signals of New Physics. We examine both the large-recoil and low-recoil regions of the K^* meson and point out special features and derive relations between observables valid in the two limits. In the large-recoil regions several of the relations are unaffected by corrections to all orders in \alpha_s. We present yet another new relation involving only observables that would verify the validity of the relations between form-factors assumed in the low-recoil region. The several relations and constraints derived will provide unambiguous signals of New Physics if it contributes to these decays.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures (20 pdf figure files). Several typos correcte

The leading-twist pion and kaon distribution amplitudes from the QCD instanton vacuum

We investigate the leading-twist light-cone distribution amplitudes for the pion and kaon, based on the nonlocal chiral quark model from the instanton vacuum. Effects of explicit flavor SU(3)-symmetry breaking are taken into account. The Gegenbauer moments are computed, analyzed and compared with those of other models. The one-loop QCD evolution of the moments is briefly discussed. The transverse momentum distributions are also discussed for the pion and kaon light-cone wave functions.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Mass Spectrum in SQCD and Problems with the Seiberg Duality. Another Scenario

N=1 SQCD with SU(N_c) colors and N_F flavors of light quarks is considered within the dynamical scenario which assumes that quarks can be in two different phases only. These are: a) either the HQ (heavy quark) phase where they are confined, b) or they are higgsed, at the appropriate values of parameters of the Lagrangian. The mass spectra of this (direct) theory and its Seiberg's dual are obtained and compared, for quarks of equal or unequal masses. It is shown that in all cases when there is the additional small parameter at hand (it is 0<(3N_c-N_F)/N_F << 1 for the direct theory, or its analog 0<(2N_F-3N_c)/N_F << 1 for the dual one), the mass spectra of the direct and dual theories are parametrically different. A number of other regimes are also considered.Comment: 30 pages, purely technical improvements for readers convenienc

A novel way to probe distribution amplitudes of neutral mesons in e^+e^- annihilation

We derive the amplitude for the process $e^+e^-\to \pi^0\pi^0$ at large invariant energy. The process goes through the two-photon exchange and its amplitude is expressed in terms of the convolution integral which depends on the shape of the pion distribution amplitude (DA) and the centre of mass scattering angle. Remarkable feature of the integral is that it is very sensitive to the end-point behaviour of the pion DA -- it starts to diverge if pion DA nullifies at the end-point as $\sqrt x$ or slower. That makes the $e^+e^-\to \pi^0\pi^0$ process unique probe of the shape of the meson DAs. The estimated cross section is rather small, for $\sqrt s = 3$ GeV it ranges from a fraction of femtobarn (for the asymptotic DA) to couple of femtobarn (for the Chernyak-Zhitnitsky DA). The observation of the process $e^+e^-\to\pi^0\pi^0$ with the cross section higher as estimated here would imply very unusual form of the pion DA, e.g. the flat one. The derived amplitude can be easily generalized to other processes like $e^+e^-\to \sigma\sigma, K_SK_S, \eta\eta, \eta^\prime\eta, \pi^0 f_2$, etc.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Light Cone Sum Rules for the pi0-gamma*-gamma Form Factor Revisited

We provide a theoretical update of the calculations of the pi0-gamma*-gamma form factor in the LCSR framework, including up to six polynomials in the conformal expansion of the pion distribution amplitude and taking into account twist-six corrections related to the photon emission at large distances. The results are compared with the calculations of the B-> pi l nu decay and pion electromagnetic form factors in the same framework. Our conclusion is that the recent BaBar measurements of the pi0-gamma*-gamma form factor at large momentum transfers are consistent with QCD, although they do suggest that the pion DA may have more structure than usually assumed.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, 5 table

Diagnosis of weaknesses in modern error correction codes: a physics approach

One of the main obstacles to the wider use of the modern error-correction codes is that, due to the complex behavior of their decoding algorithms, no systematic method which would allow characterization of the Bit-Error-Rate (BER) is known. This is especially true at the weak noise where many systems operate and where coding performance is difficult to estimate because of the diminishingly small number of errors. We show how the instanton method of physics allows one to solve the problem of BER analysis in the weak noise range by recasting it as a computationally tractable minimization problem.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Pion distribution amplitude from holographic QCD and the electromagnetic form factor F_pi(Q2)

The holographic QCD prediction for the pion distribution amplitude (DA) $\phi_{hol}(u)$ is used to compute the pion spacelike electromagnetic form factor $F_{\pi}(Q^2)$ within the QCD light-cone sum rule method. In calculations the pion's renormalon-based model twist-4 DA, as well as the asymptotic twist-4 DA are employed. Obtained theoretical predictions are compared with experimental data and with results of the holographic QCD

Two-photon exchange in elastic electron-nucleon scattering

A detailed study of two-photon exchange in unpolarized and polarized elastic electron--nucleon scattering is presented, taking particular account of nucleon finite size effects. Contributions from nucleon elastic intermediate states are found to have a strong angular dependence, which leads to a partial resolution of the discrepancy between the Rosenbluth and polarization transfer measurements of the proton electric to magnetic form factor ratio, G_E/G_M. The two-photon exchange contribution to the longitudinal polarization transfer P_L is small, whereas the contribution to the transverse polarization transfer P_T is enhanced at backward angles by several percent, increasing with Q^2. This gives rise to a small, ~3% suppression of G_E/G_M obtained from the polarization transfer ratio P_T/P_L at large Q^2. We also compare the two-photon exchange effects with data on the ratio of e^+ p to e^- p cross sections, which is predicted to be enhanced at backward angles. Finally, we evaluate the corrections to the form factors of the neutron, and estimate the elastic intermediate state contribution to the ^3He form factors

Light Cone Sum Rules for gamma* N -> Delta Transition Form Factors

A theoretical framework is suggested for the calculation of gamma* N -> Delta transition form factors using the light-cone sum rule approach. Leading-order sum rules are derived and compared with the existing experimental data. We find that the transition form factors in a several GeV region are dominated by the ``soft'' contributions that can be thought of as overlap integrals of the valence components of the hadron wave functions. The ``minus'' components of the quark fields contribute significantly to the result, which can be reinterpreted as large contributions of the quark orbital angular momentumComment: 38 pages, 10 figures; some typos fixed and references added, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Leading-twist pion and kaon distribution amplitudes in the gauge-invariant nonlocal chiral quark model from the instanton vacuum

We investigate the leading-twist light-cone distribution amplitudes for the pion and kaon based on the gauge-invariant nonlocal chiral quark model from the instanton vacuum in the presence of external axial-vector currents. We find that the nonlocal contribution from the gauge invariance has much effects on the pion distribution amplitudes, while it changes mildly the kaon ones. We also study the Gegenbauer moments of the distribution amplitudes and compare them with the empirical analysis of the CLEO data.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure