Determination of the b-quark mass and nonperturbative parameters in semileptonic and radiative penguin decays at BABAR

Knowing the mass of the b-quark is essential to the study of the structure and decays of B mesons as well as to future tests of the Higgs mechanism of mass generation. We present recent preliminary measurements of the b-quark mass and related nonperturbative parameters from moments of kinematic distributions in charmed and charmless semileptonic and radiative penguin B decays. Their determination from charmless semileptonic B decays is the first measurement in this mode. The data were collected by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- -collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at a center-of-momentum energy of 10.58 GeV.Comment: Contributed to the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy (Hadron 07), Frascati, Italy, 8-13 Oct 2007. 7pp, 4 figures. v2: Replaced Fig. 3 (b) with correct versio

Gaining analytic control of parton showers

Parton showers are widely used to generate fully exclusive final states needed to compare theoretical models to experimental observations. While, in general, parton showers give a good description of the experimental data, the precise functional form of the probability distribution underlying the event generation is generally not known. The reason is that realistic parton showers are required to conserve four-momentum at each vertex. In this paper we investigate in detail how four-momentum conservation is enforced in a standard parton shower and why this destroys the analytic control of the probability distribution. We show how to modify a parton shower algorithm such that it conserves four-momentum at each vertex, but for which the full analytic form of the probability distribution is known. We then comment how this analytic control can be used to match matrix element calculations with parton showers, and to estimate effects of power corrections and other uncertainties in parton showers.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, v2: final journal versio

Full-Phase-Space Twist Expansion in Semileptonic and Radiative B-Meson Decays

We study the Lambda_QCD/M_B corrections from subleading shape functions in inclusive B-meson decays. We propose a natural and smooth interpolation from the endpoint region to the full phase space, and derive expressions for the triple differential decay rate in B -> X_u l nu and the photon energy spectrum in B -> X_s gamma. Our results are valid to order Lambda_QCD/M_B for hadronic invariant masses of order Lambda_QCD M_B and to order Lambda_QCD^2/M_B^2 for larger hadronic masses. They allow a systematic investigation of the transition between the separate regimes of the local and nonlocal expansions, and can be used to study decay distributions in any kinematic variables. We consider several examples of interest and point out that a combined measurement of hadronic energy and invariant mass provides an alternative to the extraction of |V_ub| which is largely independent of shape function effects and in principle allows a higher accuracy than the combined measurement of leptonic and hadronic invariant masses. We perform the expansion directly in QCD light-cone operators, and give a discussion of the general basis of light-cone operators. Reparametrization invariance under the change of the light-cone direction reduces the number of independent shape functions. We show that differing previous results for the lepton energy spectrum obtained from different choices of light-cone coordinates are in agreement.Comment: 41 pages, 20 figures, v2: few references added, slightly extended discussion (2 figures added to illustrate m_b dependence), v3: final journal versio

Towards a global fit to extract the B->Xs gamma decay rate and Vub

The total B->Xs gamma decay rate and the CKM-matrix element Vub play an important role in finding indirect evidence for new physics affecting the flavor sector of the Standard Model, complementary to direct searches at the LHC and Tevatron. Their determination from inclusive B-meson decays requires the precise knowledge of the parton distribution function of the b quark in the B meson, called the shape function. We implement a new model-independent framework for the shape function with reliable uncertainties based on an expansion in a suitable set of basis functions. We present the current status of a global fit to BaBar and Belle data to extract the shape function and the B->Xs gamma decay rate.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figure

A model independent determination of the B -> Xs gamma decay rate

The goal of the SIMBA collaboration is to provide a global fit to the available measurements of inclusive B -> X_s gamma and B -> X_u l nu decays. By performing a global fit one is able to simultaneously determine the relevant normalizations, i.e. the total B -> X_s gamma rate and the CKM-matrix element |Vub|, together with the required hadronic parameters, most importantly the b-quark mass and the b-quark distribution function in the B-meson, called the shape function. In this talk, the current status on the model-independent determination of the shape function and |C7^\incl Vtb Vts*|, which parametrizes the total B -> Xs gamma rate, from a global fit to the available B -> X_s gamma measurements from Babar and Belle is presented. In particular, the theoretical uncertainties originating from variations of the different factorization scales are evaluated.Comment: Proceedings of CKM 2012, the 7th International Workshop on the CKM Unitarity Triangle, University of Cincinnati, USA, 28 September - 2 October 201

Shape Function Effects in B -> X_c l \nu_l

Owing to the fact that m_c^2 ~ m_b \Lambda_QCD, the endpoint region of the charged lepton energy spectrum in the inclusive decay B -> X_c l \nu_l is affected by the Fermi motion of the initial-state b quark bound in the B meson. This effect is described in QCD by shape functions. Including the mass of the final-state quark, we find that a different set of operators as employed in Ref. hep-ph/0205150 is needed for a consistent matching, when incorporating the subleading contributions in B -> X_q l \nu_l for both q = u and q = c. In addition, we modify the usual twist expansion in such a way that it yields a description of the lepton energy spectrum which is not just valid in the endpoint region, but over the entire phase space.Comment: 8 Pages, LaTeX, 2 figures; a few typos corrected and some clarifications added, final journal versio

The Quark Beam Function at Two Loops

In differential measurements at a hadron collider, collinear initial-state radiation is described by process-independent beam functions. They are the field-theoretic analog of initial-state parton showers. Depending on the measured observable they are differential in the virtuality and/or transverse momentum of the colliding partons in addition to the usual longitudinal momentum fraction. Perturbatively, the beam functions can be calculated by matching them onto standard quark and gluon parton distribution functions. We calculate the inclusive virtuality-dependent quark beam function at NNLO, which is relevant for any observables probing the virtuality of the incoming partons, including N-jettiness and beam thrust. For such observables, our results are an important ingredient in the resummation of large logarithms at N3LL order, and provide all contributions enhanced by collinear t-channel singularities at NNLO for quark-initiated processes in analytic form. We perform the calculation in both Feynman and axial gauge and use two different methods to evaluate the discontinuity of the two-loop Feynman diagrams, providing nontrivial checks of the calculation. As part of our results we reproduce the known two-loop QCD splitting functions and confirm at two loops that the virtuality-dependent beam and final-state jet functions have the same anomalous dimension.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures; v2: journal versio

Exploiting jet binning to identify the initial state of high-mass resonances

If a new high-mass resonance is discovered at the Large Hadron Collider, model-independent techniques to identify the production mechanism will be crucial to understand its nature and effective couplings to Standard Model particles. We present a powerful and model-independent method to infer the initial state in the production of any high-mass color-singlet system by using a tight veto on accompanying hadronic jets to divide the data into two mutually exclusive event samples (jet bins). For a resonance of several hundred GeV, the jet binning cut needed to discriminate quark and gluon initial states is in the experimentally accessible range of several tens of GeV. It also yields comparable cross sections for both bins, making this method viable already with the small event samples available shortly after a discovery. Theoretically, the method is made feasible by utilizing an effective field theory setup to compute the jet cut dependence precisely and model independently and to systematically control all sources of theoretical uncertainties in the jet binning, as well as their correlations. We use a 750 GeV scalar resonance as an example to demonstrate the viability of our method.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, v2: journal versio

Nonperturbative m_X cut effects in B -> Xs l+ l- observables

Recently, it was shown that in inclusive B -> Xs l+ l- decay, an angular decomposition provides three independent (q^2 dependent) observables. A strategy was formulated to extract all measurable Wilson coefficients in B -> Xs l+ l- from a few simple integrals of these observables in the low q^2 region. The experimental measurements in the low q^2 region require a cut on the hadronic invariant mass, which introduces a dependence on nonperturbative b quark distribution functions. The associated hadronic uncertainties could potentially limit the sensitivity of these decays to new physics. We compute the nonperturbative corrections to all three observables at leading and subleading order in the power expansion in \Lambda_QCD/m_b. We find that the subleading power corrections give sizeable corrections, of order -5% to -10% depending on the observable and the precise value of the hadronic mass cut. They cause a shift of order -0.05 GeV^2 to -0.1 GeV^2 in the zero of the forward-backward asymmetry.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, v2: corrected typos and Eq. (25), v3: journal versio

The Gluon Beam Function at Two Loops

The virtuality-dependent beam function is a universal ingredient in the resummation for observables probing the virtuality of incoming partons, including N-jettiness and beam thrust. We compute the gluon beam function at two-loop order. Together with our previous results for the two-loop quark beam function, this completes the full set of virtuality-dependent beam functions at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). Our results are required to account for all collinear ISR effects to the N-jettiness event shape through N^3LL order. We present numerical results for both the quark and gluon beam functions up to NNLO and N^3LL order. Numerically, the NNLO matching corrections are important. They reduce the residual matching scale dependence in the resummed beam function by about a factor of two.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures; v2: journal versio