Strangeness S=−1S=-1 hyperon-nucleon scattering in covariant chiral effective field theory

Motivated by the successes of covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory in one-baryon systems and in heavy-light systems, we study relevance of relativistic effects in hyperon-nucleon interactions with strangeness $S=-1$. In this exploratory work, we follow the covariant framework developed by Epelbaum and Gegelia to calculate the $YN$ scattering amplitude at leading order. By fitting the five low-energy constants to the experimental data, we find that the cutoff dependence is mitigated, compared with the heavy-baryon approach. Nevertheless, the description of the experimental data remains quantitatively similar at leading order.Comment: The manuscript has been largely rewritten but the results remain unchanged. To appear in Physical Review

The D→ρD\to \rho semileptonic and radiative decays within the light-cone sum rules

The measured branching ratio of the $D$ meson semileptonic decay $D \to \rho e^+ \nu_e$, which is based on the $0.82~{\rm fb^{-1}}$ CLEO data taken at the peak of $\psi(3770)$ resonance, disagrees with the traditional SVZ sum rules analysis by about three times. In the paper, we show that this discrepancy can be eliminated by applying the QCD light-cone sum rules (LCSR) approach to calculate the $D\to \rho$ transition form factors $A_{1,2}(q^2)$ and $V(q^2)$. After extrapolating the LCSR predictions of these TFFs to whole $q^2$-region, we obtain $1/|V_{\rm cd}|^2 \times \Gamma(D \to \rho e \nu_e) =(55.45^{+13.34}_{-9.41})\times 10^{-15}~{\rm GeV}$. Using the CKM matrix element and the $D^0(D^+)$ lifetime from the Particle Data Group, we obtain ${\cal B} (D^0\to \rho^- e^+ \nu_e) = (1.749^{+0.421}_{-0.297}\pm 0.006)\times 10^{-3}$ and ${\cal B} (D^+ \to \rho^0 e^+ \nu_e) = (2.217^{+0.534}_{-0.376}\pm 0.015)\times 10^{-3}$, which agree with the CLEO measurements within errors. We also calculate the branching ratios of the two $D$ meson radiative processes and obtain ${\cal B}(D^0\to \rho^0 \gamma)= (1.744^{+0.598}_{-0.704})\times 10^{-5}$ and ${\cal B}(D^+ \to \rho^+ \gamma) = (5.034^{+0.939}_{-0.958})\times 10^{-5}$, which also agree with the Belle measurements within errors. Thus we think the LCSR approach is applicable for dealing with the $D$ meson decays.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, version to be published in EPJ

Perturbative corrections to B→DB \to D form factors in QCD

We compute perturbative QCD corrections to $B \to D$ form factors at leading power in $\Lambda/m_b$, at large hadronic recoil, from the light-cone sum rules (LCSR) with $B$-meson distribution amplitudes in HQET. QCD factorization for the vacuum-to-$B$-meson correlation function with an interpolating current for the $D$-meson is demonstrated explicitly at one loop with the power counting scheme $m_c \sim {\cal O} \left (\sqrt{\Lambda \, m_b} \right )$. The jet functions encoding information of the hard-collinear dynamics in the above-mentioned correlation function are complicated by the appearance of an additional hard-collinear scale $m_c$, compared to the counterparts entering the factorization formula of the vacuum-to-$B$-meson correction function for the construction of $B \to \pi$ from factors. Inspecting the next-to-leading-logarithmic sum rules for the form factors of $B \to D \ell \nu$ indicates that perturbative corrections to the hard-collinear functions are more profound than that for the hard functions, with the default theory inputs, in the physical kinematic region. We further compute the subleading power correction induced by the three-particle quark-gluon distribution amplitudes of the $B$-meson at tree level employing the background gluon field approach. The LCSR predictions for the semileptonic $B \to D \ell \nu$ form factors are then extrapolated to the entire kinematic region with the $z$-series parametrization. Phenomenological implications of our determinations for the form factors $f_{BD}^{+, 0}(q^2)$ are explored by investigating the (differential) branching fractions and the $R(D)$ ratio of $B \to D \ell \nu$ and by determining the CKM matrix element $|V_{cb}|$ from the total decay rate of $B \to D \mu \nu_{\mu}$.Comment: 49 pages, 8 figures, version accepted for publication in JHE

QCD calculations of B→π,KB \to \pi, K form factors with higher-twist corrections

We update QCD calculations of $B \to \pi, K$ form factors at large hadronic recoil by including the subleading-power corrections from the higher-twist $B$-meson light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) up to the twist-six accuracy and the strange-quark mass effects at leading-power in $\Lambda/m_b$ from the twist-two $B$-meson LCDA $\phi_B^{+}(\omega, \mu)$. The higher-twist corrections from both the two-particle and three-particle $B$-meson LCDAs are computed from the light-cone QCD sum rules (LCSR) at tree level. In particular, we construct the local duality model for the twist-five and -six $B$-meson LCDAs, in agreement with the corresponding asymptotic behaviours at small quark and gluon momenta, employing the QCD sum rules in heavy quark effective theory at leading order in $\alpha_s$. The strange quark mass effects in semileptonic $B \to K$ form factors yield the leading-power contribution in the heavy quark expansion, consistent with the power-counting analysis in soft-collinear effective theory, and they are also computed from the LCSR approach due to the appearance of the rapidity singularities. We further explore the phenomenological aspects of the semileptonic $B \to \pi \ell \nu$ decays and the rare exclusive processes $B \to K \nu \nu$, including the determination of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$, the normalized differential $q^2$ distributions and precision observables defined by the ratios of branching fractions for the above-mentioned two channels in the same intervals of $q^2$.Comment: 36 pages, 9 figure