Prediction of beauty particle masses with the heavy quark effective theory (II)

The effective theory for heavy quarks has additional symmetries with respect to QCD, which relate charm and beauty hadron masses. Assuming the spectrum of charmed particles, we predicted in a previous work the masses of some beauty particles. The predictions of the Lambda_b mass, M(Lambda_b)=5630 MeV, and of the B_s mass, M(B_s)=5379 MeV, are in agreement with present experimental data. We continue this work using recent experimental data on charm hadron masses. The results are: M(Sigma_b)=5822+-6 MeV, M(Sigma_b*)-M(Sigma_b)=33+-3 MeV, M(Omega_b)=6080+-7 MeV, M(Omega_b*)-M(Omega_b)=32+-3 MeV, M(Lambda_b*)=5945+-3 MeV, M(Lambda_b**)-M(Lambda_b*)=15+-1 MeV. When experimental data for beauty hadron masses are available, a comparison with the theoretical values allows a quantitative estimate of the corrections to the static theory, which contain informations on hadron dynamics at low energy.Comment: 8 pages, LaTex Version 2.0

Matching of the Shape Function

The shape function f(k_+) describes Fermi motion effects in inclusive semi-leptonic decays such as B -> X_u+e+nu near the end-point of the lepton spectrum. We compute the leading one-loop corrections to the shape function f(k_+) in the effective theory with a hard cut-off regularization. The matching constant onto full QCD is infrared safe, i.e. the leading infrared singularity represented by the term log^2(k_+) cancels in the difference of integrals. We compare the hard cut-off result with the result in dimensional regularization, the latter containing an additional factor of two in the coefficient of the log^2(k_+) term, and consequently requiring an oversubtraction.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure added, minor changes in the tex

Long distance effects in semi-inclusive B decays

We discuss some issues on factorization of long distance effects for semi-inclusive B decay spectra in full QCD and in the effective theory.Comment: Contribution to the Proceedings of 1st Workshop on Theory, Phenomenology and Experiments in Heavy Flavour Physics, Anacapri, Italy, 29-31 May, 2006, to be published on Nucl. Phys. B Proceeding

Threshold resummed spectra in B -> Xu l nu decays in NLO (II)

We resum to next-to-leading order the distribution in the ratio of the invariant hadron mass mX to the total hadron energy EX and the distribution in mX in the semileptonic decays B -> Xu l nu. By expanding our formulas, we obtain the coefficients of all the infrared logarithms at O(alphaS^2) and of the leading ones at O(alphaS^3). We explicitly show that the relation between these semileptonic spectra and the photon spectrum in the radiative decay B -> Xs gamma is not a purely short-distance one. There are long-distance effects in the semileptonic spectra which are not completely factorized by the structure function as measured in the radiative decay and have to be modelled in some way.Comment: 16 pages, no figure

Factorization and Effective Theories

We prove factorization in the decay of a B meson into a D* + jet using the Large Energy Effective Theory. The proof is non perturbative, does not require any gauge fixing and is exact in the limit of a very narrow jet. On the other hand, it is shown that this theory is unable to consistently describe completely exclusive processes such as for example a B which decays into a D* + pion, due to an oversimplification of transverse momentum dynamics. Therefore we present a variant of the Large Energy Effective Theory, i.e. a new effective theory for massless particles which properly takes into account transverse degrees of freedom and is the natural framework to study exclusive non-leptonic decays.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, LaTex correction

Threshold Resummed Spectra in B -> Xu l nu Decays in NLO (I)

We evaluate thresholds resummed spectra in B -> Xu l nu decays in next-to-leading order. We present results for the distribution in E_X and in m_X^2/E_X^2, for the distribution in E_X and E_l and for the distribution in E_X, where E_X and m_X are the energy and the invariant mass of the final hadronic state Xu respectively and E_l is the energy of the charged lepton. We explicitly show that all these spectra (where there is no integration over the hadronic energy) can be directly related to the photon spectrum in B -> Xs gamma via short-distance coefficient functions.Comment: 33 pages, no figures. The section on the double distribution in the hadron and electron energies has been largely rewritten with an improved resummation scheme. Small stylistic changes in the remaining sections. References adde

Semi-Inclusive B Decays and a Model for Soft-Gluon Effects

We compare experimental spectra of radiative and semileptonic B decays with the predictions of a model based on soft-gluon resummation to next-to-next-to leading order and on a ghost-less time-like coupling. We find a good agreement with photon spectra in the radiative decay and with hadron mass distributions in the semileptonic one: the extracted values for alpha_S(m_Z) are in agreement with the current PDG average within at most two standard deviations. The agreement is instead less good for the electron spectra measured by BaBar and Belle in semileptonic decays for small electron energies (< 2.2 GeV): our spectrum is harder. We also show that, in general, the inclusion of next-to-next-to-leading order effects is crucial for bringing the model closer to the data and that the non-power expansion introduced in the framework of analytic coupling studies does not accurately describe soft-gluon effects.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figure

Renormalons and confinement

We compute the renormalon ambiguity of the static potential, in the limit of a large number of flavors. An extrapolation of the QED result to QCD implies that the large distance behavior of the quark potential is arbitrary in perturbation theory, as there are an infinite number of prescriptions to assign. The shape of the potential at large distances is not only affected by the renormalon pole closest to the origin of the Borel plane, but a resummation of all renormalon contributions is required. In particular, confinement can be accommodated, but it is not explained. At short distances there is no indication of a linear term in the potential.Comment: 7 pages revtex; major changes: list of authors corrected, title, abstract, body of paper changed

Factorization in Exclusive and Seminclusive Decays and Effective Theories for Massless Particles

We prove rigorously factorization in the seminclusive decay $B\to D^{(*)} + jet$ using the large energy effective theory. It is also shown that this effective theory is unable to consistently describe completely exclusive processes, such as the decay $B\to D^{(*)}+\pi(\rho)$, and therefore also related properties such as factorization. This is due to an oversimplification of transverse momentum dynamics. We present a variant of the large energy effective theory, i.e. a new effective theory for massless particles, which properly takes into account transverse momentum dynamics and is therefore the natural framework to study exclusive non-leptonic decays. Finally, it is shown that the collinear instability of the large energy effective theory disappears when seminclusive observables are considered.Comment: Latex file, 34 pages, no figures. There is a more detailed discussion about pinch singularities; some typos are correcte

The structure function of semi-inclusive heavy flavour decays in field theory

We consider the decay of a heavy flavour into an inclusive hadronic state X of invariant mass m_X small with respect to its energy E_X, m_X << E_X. The electron spectrum and the hadronic mass distribution in semileptonic b -> u decays, or the photon spectrum in b -> s gamma decays, all require, close to their endpoints, a control over this region. This region is affected both by non-perturbative phenomena related to the Fermi motion of the heavy quark and by perturbative soft gluon radiation in the final state (Sudakov form factor).Fermi motion can be described by the shape function f (m*), which represents the distribution of the effective mass m* of the heavy quark at disintegration time. We perform a factorization with a simple technique in order to consistently separate perturbative from non-perturbative effects. We find that the shape function, contrary to naive expectations,is not a physical distribution, as it is affected by substantial regularization scheme effects, controlling even the leading, double-logarithmic term. It factorizes, however, the bulk of non-perturbative effects in lattice-like regularizations. Some non-perturbative effects are present in the coefficient function even at leading twist, but they are expected to be suppressed on physical grounds. Finally, we clarify a controversial factor of 2 in the evolution kernel of the shape function.Comment: 52 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX. More descriptive title. A few minor changes. To be published in Nucl. Phys.