B Meson Semileptonic Form Factors from Unquenched Lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper presents unquenched lattice QCD calculations of B meson semileptonic form factors, leading to an improved determination of the CKM matrix element |V_{ub}| from experimental decay data.

Contribution

The study provides the first unquenched lattice QCD results for B to pi semileptonic form factors, including chiral extrapolations and updated |V_{ub}| extraction.

Findings

Calculated form factors f_+(q^2) and f_0(q^2) in the chiral limit.

Derived |V_{ub}| value of 3.55(25)(50) x 10^{-3} from decay data.

Updated form factor results with an erratum correcting previous values.

Abstract

The semileptonic process, B --> \pi l \nu, is studied via full QCD Lattice simulations. We use unquenched gauge configurations generated by the MILC collaboration. These include the effect of vacuum polarization from three quark flavors: the $s$ quark and two very light flavors ($u/d$) of variable mass allowing extrapolations to the physical chiral limit. We employ Nonrelativistic QCD to simulate the $b$ quark and a highly improved staggered quark action for the light sea and valence quarks. We calculate the form factors $f_+(q^2)$ and $f_0(q^2)$ in the chiral limit for the range 16 GeV$^2 \leq q^2 < q^2_{max}$ and obtain $\int^{q^2_{max}}_{16 GeV^2} [d\Gamma/dq^2] dq^2 / |v_{ub}|^2 = 1.46(35) ps^{-1}$. Combining this with a preliminary average by the Heavy Flavor Averaging Group (HFAG'05) of recent branching fraction data for exclusive B semileptonic decays from the BaBar, Belle and CLEO collaborations, leads to $|V_{ub}| = 4.22(30)(51) \times 10^{-3}$. PLEASE NOTE APPENDIX B with an ERRATUM, to appear in Physical Review D, to the published version of this e-print (Phys.Rev.D 73, 074502 (2006)). Results for the form factor $f_+(q^2)$ in the chiral limit have changed significantly. The last two sentences in this abstract should now read; "We calculate the form factor $f_+(q^2)$ and $f_0(q^2)$ in the chiral limit for the range 16 Gev$^2 \leq q^2 < q^2_{max}$ and obtain $\int^{q^2_{max}}_{16 GeV^2} [d\Gamma/dq^2] dq^2 / |V_{ub}|^2 = 2.07(57)ps^{-1}$. Combining this with a preliminary average by the Heavy Flavor Averagibg Group (HFAG'05) of recent branching fraction data for exclusive B semileptonic decays from the BaBar, Belle and CLEO collaborations, leads to $|V_{ub}| = 3.55(25)(50) \times 10^{-3}$."