General Analysis of U-Spin Breaking in B Decays

Abstract

We analyse the breaking of U-spin on a group theoretical basis. Due to the simple behaviour of the weak effective hamiltonian under U-spin and the unique structure of the breaking terms such a group theoretical analysis leads to a manageable number of parameters. Several applications are discussed, including the decays B -> J/psi K and B -> D K.

Comments: 18 pages, 2 figures; Paragraph added on decays of B0 to P+P- with P=(pi,K), and several minor corrections performed. Version matches the one to appear in Phys. Rev. D