Theoretical Introduction to B Decays and the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical overview of B decays using effective field theories, focusing on the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory to describe QCD effects in high-energy light hadron production.

Contribution

It introduces the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory as a tool for model-independent analysis of QCD effects in B decays, expanding on existing methods.

Findings

Descriptions of three key expansions for B decay analysis

Predictions derived from each effective theory expansion

Framework for systematic QCD effects analysis in B decays

Abstract

In this talk I give an introduction to methods used to give a model independent description of QCD effects in B-decays. I discuss three useful expansions: mb/mW << 1 for the electroweak Hamiltonian, LambdaQCD/mb << 1 for Heavy Quark Effective theory, and LambdaQCD/Q << 1 for the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory where Q ~ mb is the large energy of light final state hadrons. I discuss predictions that can be made with each expansion.