Updated Analysis of Some Two-Body Charmless B Decays

Abstract

New data from the BaBar, Belle, and CLEO Collaborations on B decays to two-body charmless final states are analyzed, with the following consequences: (1) The penguin amplitude which dominates the decay $B^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}{K}^{\ast 0}$ has a magnitude similar to that dominating $B^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}{K}^0$. (2) The decay $B^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}\eta$, a good candidate for observing direct CP violation, should be detectable at present levels of sensitivity. (3) The decays $B^{+}\to {\eta }^{\prime }{K}^{+}$ and $B^{+}\to \eta K^{\ast +}$ are sufficiently similar in rate to the corresponding decays $B^0\to {\eta }^{\prime }{K}^0$ and $B^0\to \eta K^{\ast 0}$, respectively, that one cannot yet infer the need for ``tree'' amplitudes $t^{\prime }$ contributing to the $B^{+}$ but not the $B^0$ decays. Statistical requirements for observing this and other examples of tree-penguin interference are given. (4) Whereas the $B^{+}\to {\eta }^{\prime }{K}^{+}$ and $B^0\to {\eta }^{\prime }{K}^0$ rates cannot be accounted for by the penguin amplitude $p^{\prime }$ alone but require an additional flavor-singlet penguin contribution $s^{\prime }$, no such flavor-singlet penguin contribution is yet called for in the decays $B^{+}\to \eta K^{\ast +}$ or $B^0\to \eta K^{\ast 0}$. Predictions for the rates for $B^{+}\to {\eta }^{\prime }{K}^{\ast +}$ and $B^0\to {\eta }^{\prime }{K}^{\ast 0}$ are given which would allow one to gauge the importance of these flavor-singlet penguin amplitudes.

Comments: 19 pages, RevTeX, 1 figure, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. D. Some small revisions made to original version