Hadronic weak decays of heavy mesons and nonfactorization

Abstract

The parametersχ _1,2, which measure nonfactorizable soft gluon contributions to hadronic weak decays of mesons, are updated by extracting them from the data ofD, B→PP, VP decays (P: pseudoscalar meson,V: vector meson). It is found thatχ ₂ ranges from −0.36 to −0.60 in the decays fromD→Kπ toD ⁺→φπ ⁺,D→K*π, while it is of order 10% with a positive sign inB→ψK, Dπ, D*π, Dρ decays. Therefore, the effective parametera ₂ is process dependent in charm decay, whereas it stays fairly stable inB decay. This is in accordance with the picture that nonfactorizable soft gluon effects become stronger when the relative momentum of the decay particles becomes smaller. As forD, B→VV decays, the presence of nonfactorizable terms in general prevents a possible definition of effectivea ₁ anda ₂. This is reinforced by the observation of a large longitudinal polarization fraction inB→ψK* decay, implying nonfactorizable effects contributing differently toS-, P- andD-wave amplitudes. We found thatA ^nf₁ /A ₁>0>A ^nf₂ /A ₂,V ^nf/V (nf standing for nonfactorization) forB→ψK* decay and 0>A ^nf₁ /A ₁>A ^nf₂ /A ₂,V ^nf/V forD→K*ρ decay. A measurement of longitudinally and transversely polarized decay rates Γ _L and Γ _T in color-suppressed decay modesB ⁰→D*⁰ ρ ⁰,D*⁰ ω andD ⁺→φρ ⁺ is urged.