33 pages, 2 figures; text modified in sections 3 and 4, added 3 equations [(23),(40),(46)] and corrected Eq. (39); added 4 references; title slightly modified; to appear in the European Physical Journal C
We compute NNLO (${\cal O}(α_s^2)$) corrections to the hard-scattering kernels entering the QCD factorization formula for $B\to Vγ$ decays, where $V$ is a light vector meson. We give complete NNLO results for the dipole operators $Q_7$ and $Q_8$, and partial results for $Q_1$ valid in the large-$β_0$ limit and neglecting the NNLO correction from hard spectator scattering. Large perturbative logarithms in the hard-scattering kernels are identified and resummed using soft-collinear effective theory. We use our results to estimate the branching fractions for $B\to K^*γ$ and $B_s\to ϕγ$ decays at NNLO and compare them with the current experimental data.
We perform the two-loop matching calculation for heavy-to-light currents from QCD onto soft-collinear effective theory for the complete set of Dirac structures. The newly obtained matching coefficients enter several phenomenological applications, of which we discuss heavy-to-light form factor ratios and exclusive radiative decays, as well as the semi-inclusive decay anti-B ---> X(s) l+ l-. For this decay, we observe a significant shift of the forward-backward asymmetry zero and find q_0^2 = (3.34 +0.22 -0.25) GeV^2 for an invariant mass cut m_X^cut=2.0 GeV.
We investigate the regularization-scheme dependence of scattering amplitudes in massless QCD and find that the four-dimensional helicity scheme (FDH) and dimensional reduction (DRED) are consistent at least up to NNLO in the perturbative expansion if renormalization is done appropriately. Scheme dependence is shown to be deeply linked to the structure of UV and IR singularities. We use jet and soft functions defined in soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) to efficiently extract the relevant anomalous dimensions in the different schemes. This result allows us to construct transition rules for…
We analyze the supersymmetric contributions to the direct CP asymmetries of the decays $B \to πK^*$ and $B\toρK$ within Soft Collinear Effective Theory. We extend the Standard Model analysis of these asymmetries to include the next leading order QCD corrections. We find that, even with QCD correction, the Standard Model predictions can not accommodate the direct CP asymmetries in these decay modes. Using Mass Insertion Approach, we show that non-minimal flavor SUSY contributions mediated by gluino exchange can enhance the CP asymmetries significantly and thus can accommodate the experimental r…
In this talk I will discuss non-leptonic B decays, in particular how soft-collinear effective field theory (SCET) can be used to constrain the non-perturbative hadronic parameters required to describe the various observables.
We present a systematic discussion of Lambda_b -> Lambda transition form factors in the framework of soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). The universal soft form factor, which enters the symmetry relations in the limit of large recoil energy, is calculated from a sum-rule analysis of a suitable SCET correlation function. The same method is applied to derive the leading corrections from hard-collinear gluon exchange at first order in the strong coupling constant. We present numerical estimates for form factors and form-factor ratios and their impact on decay observables in Lambda_b -> Lambda…
Exclusive non-leptonic two-body decays of $B$ mesons have been studied extensively in the past two decades within the framework of factorization. However, the exploration of the corresponding three-body case has only started recently, in part motivated by new data. We consider here the simplest non-leptonic three-body $B$ decays from the point of view of factorization, namely heavy-to-heavy transitions. We provide a careful derivation of the SCET/QCDF factorized amplitudes to NNLO in $α_s$, and discuss the numerical impact of NLO and NNLO corrections. We then study the narrow-width limit, show…
We give a detailed description of the differences between the factorization and results derived from SCET and QCDF for decays B -> M1 M2. This serves as a reply to a comment about our work "B-> M1 M2: Factorization, charming penguins, strong phases, and polarization" [1] made by the authors in [2]. We disagree with their criticisms.
In this work we study QCD corrections to the top quark doubly decay rate with a detected $B$ hadron containing a $b$ quark. We focus on the regime among which the emitted $W$ boson nearly carries its maxim energy. The tool that we use here is the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). The factorization theorem based on SCET indicates a novel fragmenting jet function. We calculate this function to next-to-leading order in $α_s$. Large logarithms due to several well separated scale are summed up using the renormalization group equation (RGE). Finally we reach an analytic formula for the distrib…
Expressions for decay amplitudes of B0, B- and Bs mesons to two light pseudoscalar or vector mesons, including isosinglet mesons eta, eta', omega, phi, are obtained using Soft Collinear Effective Theory at LO in 1/mb. These are then used to predict unmeasured branching ratios, direct and indirect CP asymmetries in B0, B- and Bs decays into two light pseudoscalars, following a determination of nonperturbative SCET parameters from existing data using a chi-squared fit. A separate discussion of indirect CP asymmetries in penguin dominated B0 --> eta' K(S/L), pi0 K(S/L) decays is given.
We describe a chiral formalism for processes involving both energetic hadrons and soft Goldstone bosons, which extends the application of soft-collinear effective theory to multibody B decays. The nonfactorizable helicity amplitudes for heavy meson decays into multibody final states satisfy symmetry relations analogous to the large energy form factor relations, which are broken at leading order in Lambda/mb by calculable factorizable terms. We use the chiral effective theory to compute the leading corrections to these symmetry relations in B -> M_n pi ell\barνand B -> M_n pi e+e- decays.
Exploring hints of New Physics in the decay modes B -> pi K^* and B -> rho K can shed light on the B -> K pi puzzle. In this talk we discuss supersymmetric contributions to the direct CP asymmetries of the decays B -> pi K^* and B -> rho K within Soft Collinear Effective Theory. We consider non-minimal flavor SUSY contributions mediated by gluino exchange and apply the Mass Insertion Approximation in the analysis. We show that gluino contributions can enhance the CP asymmetries and accommodate the experimental results.
We study the evolution of flavor-singlet, light-cone amplitudes in the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET), and reproduce results previously obtained by a different approach. We apply our calculation to the color-singlet contribution to the photon endpoint in radiative Upsilon decay. In a previous paper, we studied the color-singlet contributions to the endpoint, but neglected operator mixing, arguing that it should be a numerically small effect. Nevertheless the mixing needs to be included in a consistent calculation, and we do just that in this work. We find that the effects of mixing are…
We study exclusive radiative decays of the $Υ$ using soft-collinear effective theory and non-relativistic QCD. In contrast to inclusive radiative decays at the endpoint we find that color-octet contributions are power suppressed in exclusive decays, and can safely be neglected, greatly simplifying the analysis. We determine the complete set of Lorentz structures that can appear in the SCET Wilson coefficients and match onto them using results from a previous calculation. We run these coefficients from the scale $\mups$ to the scale $Λ\sim 1 \textrm{GeV}$, thereby summing large logarithms. Fina…
We analyze the $5σ$ difference between the CP asymmetries of the $B^0 \to K^+ π^-$ and $B^+ \to K^+ π^0$ decays within the Soft Collinear Effective Theory. We find that in the Standard Model, such a big difference cannot be achieved. We classify then the requirements for the possible New Physics models, which can be responsible for the experimental results. As an example of a New Physics model we study minimal supersymmetric models, and find that the measured asymmetry can be obtained with non-minimal flavor violation.
We consider nonleptonic B decays into two light mesons at leading order in soft-collinear effective theory, and show that the decay amplitudes are factorized to all orders in alpha_s. The operators for nonleptonic B decays in the full theory are first matched to the operators in SCET_I, which is the effective theory appropriate for sqrt{m_b Lambda} <mu <m_b with Lambda~0.5 GeV. We evolve the operators and the relevant time-ordered products in SCET_I to SCET_II, which is appropriate for mu < sqrt{m_b Lambda}. Using the gauge-invariant operators in SCET_II, we compute nonleptonic B decays in SCE…
We present numerical calculations of the partial width of the charged Higgs boson decay into a top quark, $H^- \rightarrow \bar{t} + b + X$, and the partial width of the top quark decay into a light charged Higgs boson $t \rightarrow H^+ + b + X$ at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD, based on a factorization formula of the jet mass. The NNLO corrections significantly reduce the renormalization scale dependence of the partial decay width in both cases. We show relative size of the NNLO corrections for different charged Higgs boson masses and for different renormalization scales. The N…
B -> K pi and related decays are studied in the heavy quark limit of QCD using the soft collinear effective theory (SCET). We focus on results that follow solely from integrating out the scale mb, without expanding the amplitudes for the physics at smaller scales such as alphas(sqrt{Epi LambdaQCD}). The reduction in the number of hadronic parameters in SCET leads to multiple predictions without the need of SU(3). We find that the CP-asymmetry in $B^-\to pi^0 K^-$ should have a similar magnitude and the same sign as the well measured asymmetry in $\bar B^0 \toπ^+ K^-$. Our prediction for Br(K^+…
Factorization based on the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) can be used to reduce the number of hadronic parameters in an isospin analysis of B-> pi pi decays by one. This gives a theoretically precise method for determining the CP violating phase gamma by fitting to the B-> pi pi data without C_{pi0 pi0}. SCET predicts that gamma lies close to the isospin bounds. With the current world averages we find gamma=75^o \pm 2^o {}^{+9^o}_{-13^o}, where the uncertainties are theoretical, then experimental.
We report on a fully differential next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) calculation of s-channel single top (anti-)quark production with a semi-leptonic decay at the LHC, neglecting the color correlation between the light and heavy quark lines and in the narrow width approximation. The NNLO corrections can increase the cross section by about 10% in the low transverse momentum region of the top quark and reduce scale variation uncertainty. In order to compare with experimental results without unfolding procedures, we also present theoretical predictions with fiducial cuts, including total cross …
We present a next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) accurate description of associated HZ production, followed by the Higgs boson decay into a pair of $b$-quarks treated at next-to-leading order (NLO), consistently matched to a parton shower (PS). The matching is achieved by performing reweighting of the $\texttt{HZJ-MiNLO}$ events, using multi-dimensional distributions that are fully-differential in the HZ Born kinematics, to the NNLO results obtained by using the $\texttt{MCFM-8.0}$ fixed-order calculation. Additionally we include the $gg\to\rm{HZ}$ contribution to the discussed process that a…
We study the decay modes $\bar{B}_s\to ϕπ^0$ and $\bar{B}_s\to ϕρ^0$ using Soft Collinear Effective Theory. Within Standard Model and including the error due to the SU(3) breaking effect in the SCET parameters we find that BR $\bar{B}_s\to ϕπ^0 =7_{-1-2}^{+1+2}\times 10^{-8} $ and BR $\bar{B}_s\to ϕπ^0=9_{-1-4}^{+1+3}\times 10^{-8}$ corresponding to solution 1 and solution 2 of the SCET parameters respectively.For the decay mode $\bar{B}_s\to ϕρ^0$, we find that BR $\bar{B}_s\to ϕρ^0 = 20.2^{+1+9}_{-1-12}\times 10^{-8} $ and BR $ \bar{B}_s\to ϕρ^0 = 34.0^{+1.5 + 15}_{-1.5-22}\times 10^{-8} $ c…
We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs boson production in weak boson fusion followed by its decay to a $b\bar b$ pair or to a pair of leptonically-decaying $W$ bosons. Our calculation allows us to compute realistic fiducial cross sections and assess the impact of fiducial cuts applied to the Higgs boson decay products on the magnitude of QCD radiative corrections in weak boson fusion.
The colour-suppressed tree amplitude in non-leptonic B decays is particularly sensitive to perturbative and non-perturbative corrections. We calculate the two-loop (NNLO) vertex corrections to the colour-suppressed and colour-allowed tree amplitudes in QCD factorization. Our results are given completely analytically, including the full dependence on the charm quark mass. We then update theoretical predictions for a range of interesting observables derived from pi pi, pi rho, and rho rho final states that do not depend (significantly) on penguin contributions, and hence are now available with N…
We calculate, for the first time, the NNLO QCD corrections to identified heavy hadron production at hadron colliders. The calculation is based on a flexible numeric framework which allows the calculation of any distribution of a single identified heavy hadron plus jets and non-QCD particles. As a first application we provide NNLO QCD predictions for several differential distributions of $B$ hadrons in $t\bar t$ events at the LHC. Among others, these predictions are needed for the precise determination of the top quark mass. The extension of our results to other processes, like open or associat…
In this paper, with the framework of (p)NRQCD and SCET, the processes $B_c\to M_1 M_2$ are investigated. Here $M_{1(2)}$ denotes the light charmless meson, such as $π$, $ρ$, $K$ or $K^*$. Based on the SCET power counting rules, the leading transition amplitudes are picked out, which include $A_{wA}^2$, $A_{wB}^2$, $A_{wC}^2$, $A_{wD}^2$ and $A_{c}^0$. From SCET, their factorization formulae are proven. Based on the obtained factorization formulae, in particular, the numerical calculation on $A_{wB}^2$ is performed.
We calculate a comprehensive set of spin correlations and differential distributions in top-quark pair production and decay to dilepton final states. This is the first time such a complete study is performed at next-to-next-to leading order in QCD. Both inclusive and fiducial distributions are presented and analyzed. Good agreement between NNLO QCD predictions and data is found. We demonstrate that it is possible to perform high-precision comparisons of fixed-order calculations with fiducial-level data. Subtleties of the top quark definition are raised and clarified. Some of those are found to…
We consider rare radiative B decays such as B -> K^* gamma or B -> rho gamma in soft-collinear effective theory, and show that the decay amplitudes are factorized to all orders in alpha_s and at leading order in Lambda/m_b.By employing two-step matching, we classify the operators for radiative B decays in powers of a small parameter lambda(~ \sqrt{Lambda/m_b}) and obtain the relevant operators to order lambda in SCET_I. These operators are constructed with or without spectator quarks including the four-quark operators contributing to annihilation and W-exchange channels. And we employ SCET_II …
The four-lepton decay mode of the Higgs boson allows for a clean kinematic reconstruction, thereby enabling precision studies of the Higgs boson properties and of its production dynamics. We compute the NNLO QCD corrections to fiducial cross sections relevant to this decay mode in the gluon-fusion production of a Higgs boson in association with a hadronic jet, and study the impact of the QCD corrections on the fiducial acceptance factors in inclusive Higgs and Higgs-plus-jet production. We investigate in detail the different definitions used in the ATLAS and CMS measurements to define the fidu…
We consider the decay of a neutral Higgs boson of arbitrary CP nature to a massive quark antiquark pair at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. Our analysis is made at the differential level using the antenna subtraction framework. We apply our general set-up to the decays of a CP-even and CP-odd heavy Higgs boson to a top-quark top-antiquark pair and to the decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to a massive bottom-quark bottom-antiquark pair. In the latter case we calculate, in particular, the two-jet, three-jet, and four-jet decay rates and, for two-jet events, the energy distributi…
We consider Standard Model Higgs boson production by gluon--gluon fusion in hadron collisions. We present a calculation of the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the cross section in the H->WW->lnu lnu and H->ZZ->4l decay channels. The calculation is implemented in the parton level Monte Carlo program HNNLO and allows us to apply arbitrary cuts on the final state leptons and the associated jet activity. We present selected numerical results for the signal cross section at the LHC, by using all the nominal cuts proposed for the forthcoming Higgs boson search.
We consider QCD radiative corrections to Standard Model Higgs boson production in association with a W boson in hadron collisions. We present a fully exclusive calculation up to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD perturbation theory. To perform this NNLO computation, we use a recently proposed version of the subtraction formalism. Our calculation includes finite-width effects, the leptonic decay of the W boson with its spin correlations, and the decay of the Higgs boson into a bbbar pair. We present selected numerical results at the Tevatron and the LHC.
We illustrate the application of the recently developed SCET$_{\rm BSM}$ framework in the context of a specific model, in which the Standard Model (SM) is supplemented by a heavy scalar $S$ and three generations of heavy, vector-like quarks $Ψ$. We construct the appropriate effective field theory for two-body decays of $S$ into SM particles. We explicitly compute the Wilson coefficients of the SCET$_{\rm BSM}$ operators appearing at leading and next-to-leading order (NLO) in an expansion in powers of $v/M_S$, as well as for a subset of operators arising at NNLO, retaining the full dependence o…
We show that the amplitudes for B decays into two light mesons at leading order in soft-collinear effective theory are factorized to all orders in alpha_s. We construct gauge-invariant four-quark operators by employing the effective theories SCET_I for sqrt{m_b Λ} <μ<m_b, and SCET_II for μ<sqrt{m_b Λ} with Lambda ~0.5 GeV. These operators do not allow gluon exchanges between different sectors of the current and the matrix elements are reduced to the products of current matrix elements. The spectator interactions are also factorized at leading order in SCET and to all orders in alpha_s.
We present a fully differential next-to-next-to-leading order calculation of t-channel single top-quark production and decay at the LHC under narrow-width approximation and neglecting cross-talk between incoming protons. We focus on the fiducial cross sections at 13 TeV, finding that the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections can reach the level of -6%. The scale variations are reduced to the level of a percent. Our results can be used to improve experimental acceptance estimates and the measurements of the single top-quark production cross section and the top-quark electroweak coupling…
The approximate tree decays B- -> pi- pi0/rho- rho0 may serve as benchmark channels for testing the various theoretical descriptions of the strong interaction dynamics in hadronic B meson decays. The ratios of hadronic and differential semileptonic B -> pi l nu/rho l nu decay rates at maximum recoil provide particularly clean probes of the QCD dynamics. We confront the recent NNLO calculation in the QCD factorization framework with experimental data and find support for the factorization assumption. A detailed analysis of all tree-dominated B -> pi pi/pi rho/rho rho decay modes seems to favour…
We present an approximate NNLO evaluation of the QCD form factor resumming large logarithmic perturbative contributions in semi-inclusive heavy flavour decays.
We evaluate in the framework of QCD factorization the two-loop vertex corrections to the decays $\bar{B}_{(s)}\to D_{(s)}^{(\ast)+} \, L^-$ and $Λ_b \to Λ_c^+ \, L^-$, where $L$ is a light meson from the set $\{π,ρ,K^{(\ast)},a_1\}$. These decays are paradigms of the QCD factorization approach since only the colour-allowed tree amplitude contributes at leading power. Hence they are sensitive to the size of power corrections once their leading-power perturbative expansion is under control. Here we compute the two-loop ${\cal O}(α_s^2)$ correction to the leading-power hard scattering kernels, an…
The form factors of $B\toπ(ρ)$ decays are analyzed using the light-cone sum rules in the framework of the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). We establish the sum rules for the leading and the next-to-leading order (NLO) nonperturbative functions of the SCET. Explicit calculation shows that (leading)+(NLO) $\sim 1/E^2+1/E^3$, where $E$ is the large recoiling energy. The results are compatible with the literatures. Also the validity of this hybrid formalism is discussed.
We report on the status of the perturbative calculation in the QCD factorization framework to charmless hadronic B meson decays and present a compilation of available NNLO results.
We discuss the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) and kinematic expansions in B-decays, focusing on recent results for color suppressed B -> D^(*) X decays. In particular we discuss model independent predictions for B^0 -> D^0 pi^0 and B^0 -> D^*0 pi^0, and update the comparison using new experimental data. We show why HQET alone is insufficient to give these results. SCET predictions are also reviewed for other B and Lambda_b decay channels that are not yet tested by data.
The hadronic ($Γ^{\rm W}_{\rm had}$) and total ($Γ^{\rm W}_{\rm tot}$) widths of the W boson, computed at least at next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) accuracy, are combined to derive a new precise prediction for the hadronic W branching ratio ${\cal B}^{\rm W}_{\rm had} \equiv Γ^{\rm W}_{\rm had}/Γ^{\rm W}_{\rm tot}$ = $0.682 \pm 0.011_{\rm par}$, using the experimental Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements, or ${\cal B}^{\rm W}_{\rm had} = 0.6742 \pm 0.0002_{\rm th} \pm 0.0001_{\rm par}$ assuming CKM unitarity, with uncertainties dominated by the input parameters of the calculatio…
We present partial results on NLO and NNLO QCD, and NLO electroweak corrections to polarized top quark decays. In parallel we derive positivity bounds for the polarized structure functions in polarized top quark decays and check them against the perturbative corrections to the structure functions.
We present a detailed phenomenological study of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections for $t$-channel single top (anti-)quark production and its semi-leptonic decay at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We find the NNLO corrections for the total inclusive rates at the LHC with different center of mass energies are generally smaller than the NLO corrections, indicative of improved convergence. However, they can be large for differential distributions, reaching a level of $10\%$ or more in certain regions of the transverse momentum distributions of the top (anti-)quark and …
We compute the 1-loop (NNLO) corrections to hard spectator-scattering in tree-dominated hadronic B decays. Depending on the values of hadronic input parameters the corrections are shown to have a significant impact on the B -> pi pi branching fractions.
We present a calculation of t-channel single-top-quark production and decay in the five-flavor scheme at NNLO. Our results resolve a disagreement between two previous calculations of this process that found a difference in the inclusive cross section at the level of the NNLO coefficient itself. We compare in detail with the previous calculations at the inclusive, differential and fiducial level including b-quark tagging at a fixed scale $μ=m_t$. In addition, we advocate the use of double deep inelastic scattering (DDIS) scales ($μ^2=Q^2$ for the light-quark line and $μ^2=Q^2+m_t^2$ for the hea…
We review recent progress in the perturbative calculations for semileptonic and hadronic B meson decays with an emphasis on the phenomenological implications of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections. Specifically, we consider CP-averaged branching ratios of tree-dominated B -> pi pi/pi rho/rho rho decays and the inclusive determination of |V_ub| from B -> X_u l nu.
We present a fully differential description of a decay of a scalar Higgs boson into massive b-quarks valid at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD). We work within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme extended to accommodate massive partons. We include the loop-induced contribution involving a Higgs coupling to a top quark. We test our calculation against results existing in the literature, comparing the predictions for the total decay width and jet rates.
We compute the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to the decay $t(\uparrow) \to X_b +W^+$ of a polarized top quark. The spin-momentum correlation in this quasi two-body decay is described by the polar angle distribution $\mathrm{d}Γ/\mathrm{d}\cosθ_P=\fracΓ{2}(1+P_t\, α_P\, \cosθ_P)$ where $P_t$ is the polarization of the top quark and $α_P$ denotes the asymmetry parameter of the decay. For the latter we find $α^{\mathrm{NNLO}}_P=0.3792\pm 0.0037$.
The theoretical status of NNLO QCD corrections to the inclusive radiative anti-B -> X_s gamma decay in the standard model is briefly overviewed. Emphasis is put on recent results for three-loop fermionic corrections to matrix elements of the most relevant four-quark operators.
Using spectral data from non-strange and strange hadronic tau decays, flavor-breaking chiral sum rules involving the flavor ud and us current-current two-point functions are constructed and used to determine the SU(3) NNLO low-energy constant combinations C_{61}^r, C_{12}^r+C_{61}^r+C_{80}^r and C_{12}^r-C_{61}^r+C_{80}^r. The first of these determinations updates the results of an earlier analysis by Durr and Kambor, while the latter two are new. The error on the C_{12}^r+C_{61}^r+C_{80}^r is particularly small. Comparisons are made to model estimates for these quantities. The role of the thi…
We compute 2-loop QCD corrections to the hard coefficient functions which arise in the factorization formula for B -> X_u l nu decays in the shape-function region. Our calculation provides the last missing piece required for a NNLO analysis of inclusive semileptonic B decays, which may significantly reduce the theoretical uncertainty in the extraction of the CKM matrix element |V_ub|. Among the technical aspects, we find that the 2-loop hard coefficient functions are free of infrared singularities as predicted by the factorization framework. We perform a brief numerical analysis of the NNLO co…
