QCD Factorization and CP Asymmetries in Hadronic B Decays

Abstract

We review recent advances in the theory of strong-interaction effects and final-state interactions in hadronic weak decays of heavy mesons. In the heavy-quark limit, the amplitudes for most nonleptonic, two-body B decays can be calculated from first principles and expressed in terms of semileptonic form factors and light-cone distribution amplitudes. We summarize the main features of this novel QCD factorization and discuss its phenomenological applications to B->D^(*)+L decays (with L a light meson), and to the rare charmless decays B->pi+K and B->pi+pi.

Comments: 8 pages, 4 figures. Talks given at the International Conference on CP Violation Physics (Ferrara, Italy, September 2000) and at the DPF 2000 Meeting (Columbus, Ohio, August 2000)