Recent charm mixing results from BABAR, Belle, and CDF

A summary of the results of several recent studies of charm mixing is presented. A number of different methods were used, including the measurement of lifetime ratios for final states of different CP, time dependence of wrong-sign hadronic decays, fits to time-dependent Dalitz plots, and searches for wrong-sign semi-leptonic decays. Taken together, they suggest mixing is of order 1%. The status of searches for indirect CP violation is also reported.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, proceedings from PHIPSI0

Collinear effective theory at subleading order and its application to heavy-light currents

We consider a collinear effective theory of highly energetic quarks with energy E, interacting with collinear and soft gluons by integrating out collinear degrees of freedom to subleading order. The collinear effective theory offers a systematic expansion in power series of a small parameter lambda ~ p_{\perp}/E, where p_{\perp} is the transverse momentum of a collinear particle. We construct the effective Lagrangian to first order in $\lambda$, and discuss its features including additional symmetries such as collinear gauge invariance and reparameterization invariance. Heavy-light currents can be matched from the full theory onto the operators in the collinear effective theory at one loop and to order lambda. We obtain heavy-light current operators in the effective theory, calculate their Wilson coefficients at this order, and the renormalization group equations for the Wilson coefficients are solved. As an application, we calculate the form factors for decays of B mesons to light energetic mesons to order lambda and at leading-logarithmic order in alpha_s.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures, revised versio

Probing CP Violation with the Deuteron Electric Dipole Moment

We present an analysis of the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the deuteron as induced by CP-violating operators of dimension 4, 5 and 6 including theta QCD, the EDMs and color EDMs of quarks, four-quark interactions and the Weinberg operator. We demonstrate that the precision goal of the EDM Collaboration's proposal to search for the deuteron EDM, (1-3)\times 10^{-27} e cm, will provide an improvement in sensitivity to these sources of one-two orders of magnitude relative to the existing bounds. We consider in detail the level to which CP-odd phases can be probed within the MSSM.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; precision estimates clarified, to appear in Phys. Rev.

SU(3) Relations and the CP Asymmetries in B Decays to η′KS\eta' K_S, ϕKS\phi K_S and K+K−KSK^+ K^- K_S

We consider CP asymmetries in neutral $B$ meson decays to $\eta' K_S$, $\phi K_S$, and $K^+ K^- K_S$. We use SU(3) relations to estimate or bound the contributions to these amplitudes proportional to $V_{ub}^*V_{us}$. Such contributions induce a deviation of the $S_f$ terms measured in these time dependent CP asymmetries from that measured for $\psi K_S$. For the $K^+ K^- K_S$ mode, we estimate the deviation to be of order 0.1. For the $\eta' K_S$ mode, we obtain an upper bound on this deviation of order 0.3. For the $\phi K_S$ mode, we have to add a mild dynamical assumption to the SU(3) analysis due to insufficient available data, yielding an upper bound of order 0.25. These bounds may improve significantly with future data. While they are large at present compared to the usually assumed Standard Model contribution, they are obtained with minimal assumptions and hence provide more rigorous tests for new physics. If measurements yield $|S_f-S_{\psi K}|$ that are much larger than our bounds, it would make a convincing case for new physics.Comment: 24 pages; corrections in Sec. III.A and V, results hardly affected, to appear in Phys Rev

B-->pi and B-->K transitions in standard and quenched chiral perturbation theory

We study the effects of chiral logs on the heavy-->light pseudoscalar meson transition form factors by using standard and quenched chiral perturbation theory combined with the static heavy quark limit. The resulting expressions are used to indicate the size of uncertainties due to the use of the quenched approximation in the current lattice studies. They may also be used to assess the size of systematic uncertainties induced by missing chiral log terms in extrapolating toward the physical pion mass. We also provide the coefficient multiplying the quenched chiral log, which may be useful if the quenched lattice studies are performed with very light mesons.Comment: 33 pages, 8 PostScript figures, version to appear in PR

Electromagnetic Decays of Heavy Baryons

The electromagnetic decays of the ground state baryon multiplets with one heavy quark are calculated using Heavy Hadron Chiral Perturbation Theory. The M1 and E2 amplitudes for S^{*}--> S gamma, S^{*} --> T gamma and S --> T gamma are separately computed. All M1 transitions are calculated up to O(1/Lambda_chi^2). The E2 amplitudes contribute at the same order for S^{*}--> S gamma, while for S^{*} --> T gamma they first appear at O(1/(m_Q \Lambda_\chi^2)) and for S --> T gamma are completely negligible. The renormalization of the chiral loops is discussed and relations among different decay amplitudes are derived. We find that chiral loops involving electromagnetic interactions of the light pseudoscalar mesons provide a sizable enhancement of these decay widths. Furthermore, we obtain an absolute prediction for the widths of Xi^{0'(*)}_c--> Xi^{0}_c gamma and Xi^{-'(*)}_b--> Xi^{-}_b gamma. Our results are compared to other estimates existing in the literature.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Towards a Model-Independent Analysis of Rare BB Decays

Motivated by the experimental accessibility of rare $B$ decays in the ongoing and planned experiments, we propose to undertake a model-independent analysis of the inclusive decay rates and distributions in the processes \bgamaxs~ and \Bsell ~($B=B^\pm$ or $B^0_d$). We show how measurements of the decay rates and distributions in these processes would allow us to extract the magnitude and sign of the dominant Wilson coefficients of the magnetic moment operator \mb \bar{s}_L \sigma_{\mu \nu} b_R F^{\mu \nu } and the four-fermion operators $(\bar{s}_L \gamma_\mu b_L)(\bar{\ell} \gamma^{\mu} \ell)$ and $(\bar{s}_L \gamma_\mu b_L)(\bar{\ell} \gamma^{\mu}\gamma^5 \ell)$. Non-standard-model effects could thus manifest themselves at low energy in rare $B$ decays through the Wilson coefficient having values distinctly different from their standard-model counterparts. We illustrate this possibility using the examples of the two-doublet Higgs models and the minimal supersymmetric models. The dilepton invariant mass spectrum and the forward-backward asymmetry of $\ell^+$ in the centre-of-mass system of the dilepton pair in the decay \Bsell ~are also worked out for the standard model and some representative solutions for the other two models.Comment: LaTeX, 36 pages, 11 figures appended after \end{document} as uu-encoded and compressed .eps files, uses epsf, CERN-TH.7346/9

The QCD heavy-quark potential to order v^2: one loop matching conditions

The one-loop QCD heavy quark potential is computed to order v^2 in the color singlet and octet channels. Several errors in the previous literature are corrected. To be consistent with the velocity power counting, the full dependence on |p' + p|/|p' - p| is kept. The matching conditions for the NRQCD one-loop potential are computed by comparing the QCD calculation with that in the effective theory. The graphs in the effective theory are also compared to terms from the hard, soft, potential, and ultrasoft regimes in the threshold expansion. The issue of off-shell versus on-shell matching and gauge dependence is discussed in detail for the 1/(m k) term in the potential. Matching on-shell gives a 1/(m k) potential that is gauge independent and does not vanish for QED.Comment: 28 pages, References added and minor changes to section III, results unchange

SU(3) Breaking and D0-D0bar Mixing

The main challenge in the Standard Model calculation of the mass and width difference in the D0-D0bar system is to estimate the size of SU(3) breaking effects. We prove that D meson mixing occurs in the Standard Model only at second order in SU(3) violation. We consider the possibility that phase space effects may be the dominant source of SU(3) breaking. We find that y=(Delta Gamma)/(2Gamma) of the order of one percent is natural in the Standard Model, potentially reducing the sensitivity to new physics of measurements of D meson mixing.Comment: 18 pages; minor corrections, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Phenomenology of non-standard Z couplings in exclusive semileptonic b -> s transitions

The rare decays $B\to K^{(*)}\ell^+\ell^-$, $B\to K^{(*)}\nu\bar\nu$ and $B_s\to\mu^+\mu^-$ are analyzed in a generic scenario where New Physics effects enter predominantly via $Z$ penguin contributions. We show that this possibility is well motivated on theoretical grounds, as the $\bar sbZ$ vertex is particularly susceptible to non-standard dynamics. In addition, such a framework is also interesting phenomenologically since the $\bar sbZ$ coupling is rather poorly constrained by present data. The characteristic features of this scenario for the relevant decay rates and distributions are investigated. We emphasize that both sign and magnitude of the forward-backward asymmetry of the decay leptons in $\bar B\to \bar K^*\ell^+\ell^-$, ${\cal A}^{(\bar B)}_{FB}$, carry sensitive information on New Physics. The observable ${\cal A}^{(\bar B)}_{FB}+{\cal A}^{(B)}_{FB}$ is proposed as a useful probe of non-standard CP violation in $\bar sbZ$ couplings.Comment: Minor modifications; version to appear in Phys. Rev.