No Arabic abstract
The present status of the LHC anomalies found in exclusive semileptonic $bto sell^+ell^-$ decays is discussed with special emphasis on the exclusive 4-body angular distribution $B to K^*(to Kpi)ell^+ell^-$. The treatment of hadronic uncertainties in this mode is briefly reviewed, and some of the analyses in the literature are critically reassessed. The global picture provided by the global fit points to a coherent pattern of deviations with a significance substantially above 4$sigma$ for different New Physics scenarios. Finally, we propose as the next step in the field to focus on the study of optimized observables that compare electron and muon modes, sensitive to lepton-flavour universality violations and free from hadronic uncertainties (including charm) in the SM, the so called $Q_i$ observables.
We predict the amplitude of the $Bto K ell^+ell^-$ decay in the region of the dilepton invariant mass squared $0<q^2leq m_{J/psi}^2$, that is, at large hadronic recoil. The $Bto K$ form factors entering the factorizable part of the decay amplitude are obtained from QCD light-cone sum rules. The nonlocal effects, generated by the four-quark and penguin operators combined with the electromagnetic interaction, are calculated at $q^2<0$, far below the hadronic thresholds. For hard-gluon contributions we employ the QCD factorization approach. The soft-gluon nonfactorizable contributions are estimated from QCD light-cone sum rules. The result of the calculation is matched to the hadronic dispersion relation in the variable $q^2$, which is then continued to the kinematical region of the decay. The overall effect of nonlocal contributions in $Bto Kell^+ell^-$ at large hadronic recoil is moderate. The main uncertainty of the predicted $Bto K ell^+ell^-$ partial width is caused by the $Bto K$ form factors. Furthermore, the isospin asymmetry in this decay is expected to be very small. We investigate the deviation of the observables from the Standard Model predictions by introducing a generic new physics contribution to the effective Hamiltonian.
Ratios of branching fractions of semileptonic B decays, $(B to H mu mu)$ over $(B to H ee)$ with $H=K, K^*,X_s, K_0(1430), phi, ldots$ are sensitive probes of lepton universality. In the Standard Model, the underlying flavor changing neutral current process $brightarrow s ell ell$ is lepton flavor universal. However models with new flavor violating physics above the weak scale can give substantial non-universal contributions. The leading contributions from such new physics can be parametrized by effective dimension six operators involving left- or right-handed quarks. We show that in the double ratios $R_{X_s}/R_K$, $R_{K^*}/R_K$ and $R_phi/R_K$ the dependence on new physics coupling to left-handed quarks cancels out. Thus a measurement of any of these double ratios is a clean probe of flavor nonuniversal physics coupling to right-handed quarks. We also point out that the observables $R_{X_s}$, $R_{K^*}$, $R_{K_0(1430)}$ and $R_phi$ depend on the same combination of Wilson coefficients and therefore satisfy simple consistency relations.
Rare semileptonic $b to s ell^+ ell^-$ transitions provide some of the most promising frameworks to search for new physics effects. Recent analyses of these decays have indicated an anomalous behaviour in measurements of angular distributions of the decay $B^0to K^*mu^+mu^-$ and lepton-flavour-universality observables. Unambiguously establishing if these deviations have a common nature is of paramount importance in order to understand the observed pattern. We propose a novel approach to independently and complementary probe this hypothesis by performing a simultaneous amplitude analysis of $bar{B}^0 to bar{K}^{*0} mu^+mu^-$ and $bar{B}^0 to bar{K}^{*0} e^+e^-$ decays. This method enables the direct determination of observables that encode potential non-equal couplings of muons and electrons, and are found to be insensitive to nonperturbative QCD effects. If current hints of new physics are confirmed, our approach could allow an early discovery of physics beyond the standard model with LHCb run II data sets.
We calculate the long-distance effect generated by the four-quark operators with $c$-quarks in the $Bto K^{(*)} ell^+ell^-$ decays. At the lepton-pair invariant masses far below the $bar{c}c$-threshold, $q^2ll 4m_c^2$, we use OPE near the light-cone. The nonfactorizable soft-gluon emission from $c$-quarks is cast in the form of a nonlocal effective operator. The $Bto K^{(*)}$ matrix elements of this operator are calculated from the QCD light-cone sum rules with the $B$-meson distribution amplitudes. As a byproduct, we also predict the charm-loop contribution to $Bto K^*gamma$ beyond the local-operator approximation. To describe the charm-loop effect at large $q^2$, we employ the hadronic dispersion relation with $psi=J/psi,psi (2S), ...$ contributions, where the measured $ Bto K^{(*)}psi $ amplitudes are used as inputs. Matching this relation to the result of QCD calculation reveals a destructive interference between the $J/psi$ and $psi(2S)$ contributions. The resulting charm-loop effect is represented as a $q^2$-dependent correction $Delta C_9(q^2)$ to the Wilson coefficient $C_9$. Within uncertainties of our calculation, at $q^2$ below the charmonium region the predicted ratio $Delta C_9(q^2)/C_9$ is $leq 5% $ for $Bto K ell^+ell^-$, but can reach as much as 20% for $Bto K^*ell^+ell^-$, the difference being mainly caused by the soft-gluon contribution.
In this paper we present a detailed study of the four-body decay $B^0to K^{+}pi^{-}ell^{+}ell^{-}$, where tensions with the Standard Model predictions have been observed. Our analysis of the decay with P- and S-wave contributions to the $K^{+}pi^{-}$ system develops a complete understanding of the symmetries of the distribution, in the case of massless and massive leptons. In both cases, the symmetries determine relations between the observables in the $B^0to K^{+}pi^{-}ell^{+}ell^{-}$ decay distribution. This enables us to define the complete set of observables accessible to experiments, including several that have not previously been identified. The new observables arise when the decay rate is written differentially with respect to $m_{Kpi}$. We demonstrate that experiments will be able to fit this full decay distribution with currently available data sets and investigate the sensitivity to new physics scenarios given the experimental precision that is expected in the future. The symmetry relations provide a unique handle to explore the behaviour of S-wave observables by expressing them in terms of P-wave observables, therefore minimising the dependence on poorly-known S-wave form factors. Using this approach, we construct two theoretically clean S-wave observables and explore their sensitivity to new physics. By further exploiting the symmetry relations, we obtain the first bounds on the S-wave observables using two different methods and highlight how these relations may be used as cross-checks of the experimental methodology. We identify a zero-crossing point that would be at a common dilepton invariant mass for a subset of P- and S-wave observables, and explore the information on new physics and hadronic effects that this zero point can provide.