Charmless B decays to a scalar meson and a vector meson

TL;DR

This paper investigates charmless B decays into scalar and vector mesons using QCD factorization, predicting decay rates, exploring meson structure implications, and comparing theoretical results with experimental data.

Contribution

It provides detailed predictions for decay rates and branching ratios, offering insights into meson structures and decay mechanisms within the QCD factorization framework.

Findings

Decay rates depend on the $f_0-\sigma$ mixing angle, compatible with $ heta oughly 20^\u00b0$.

Large predicted branching ratios for certain $a_0(980)$ modes suggest a possible four-quark nature if not observed.

Predicted rates for $a_0(1450)$ channels support a $qar q$ structure, aiding meson classification.

Abstract

The hadronic charmless B decays into a scalar meson and a vector meson are studied within the framework of QCD factorization. The main results are: (i) The decay rates for the $f_0(980)K^{*-}$ and $f_0(980)\ov K^{*0}$ modes depend on the $f_0-\sigma$ mixing angle $\theta$. The experimental measurements can be accommodated for $\theta\approx 20^\circ$. (ii) If the $a_0(980)$ is a $q\bar q$ bound state, the predicted branching ratios for the channels $a_0^+\rho^-$ and $a_0^0\rho^-$ will be very large, of order $30\times 10^{-6}$ and $23\times 10^{-6}$, respectively. If the observation of or the experimental limit on theses two modes is much smaller than the expectation of $\sim 25\times 10^{-6}$, this could hint at a four-quark nature for the $a_0(980)$. (iii) For the $a_0(1450)$ channels, $a_0^+(1450)\rho^-$ and $a_0^0(1450)\rho^-$ are found to have branching ratios of order $16\times 10^{-6}$ and $22\times 10^{-6}$, respectively. A measurement of them at the predicted level will favor the $q\bar q$ structure for the $a_0(1450)$. (iv) Contrary to the naive expectation that $\Gamma(B^-\to a_0^0\rho^-)\sim {1\over 2}\Gamma(\bar B^0\to a_0^+\rho^-)$, we found that they have comparable rates due to additional contributions to the $a_0\rho^-$ mode from the $a_0^0$ emission. (v) The predicted central value of $Br(\bar B^0\to\ov K^{*0}_0(1430)\phi)$ is larger than experiment, though it can be accommodated within theoretical errors. The decays $B\to K^{*}_0(1430)\rho$ are expected to have rates substantially larger than that of $B\to K^{*}_0(1430)\pi$ owing to the constructive (destructive) interference between the $a_4$ and $a_6$ penguin terms in the former (latter). Experimentally, it is thus important to check if the $B\to K^{*}_0\rho$ modes are enhanced relative to the corresponding $K_0^*\pi$ channels.