QED factorization of non-leptonic $B$ decays

Abstract

We show that the QCD factorization approach for $B$-meson decays to charmless hadronic two-body final states can be extended to include electromagnetic corrections. The presence of electrically charged final-state particles complicates the framework. Nevertheless, the factorization formula takes the same form as in QCD alone, with appropriate generalizations of the definitions of light-cone distribution amplitudes and form factors to include QED effects. More precisely, we factorize QED effects above the strong interaction scale $\Lambda_{\rm QCD}$ for the non-radiative matrix elements $\langle M_1 M_2|Q_i|\bar{B}\rangle$ of the current-current operators from the effective weak interactions. The rates of the branching fractions for the infrared-finite observables $\bar B\to M_1 M_2(\gamma)$ with photons of maximal energy $\Delta E\ll\Lambda_{\rm QCD}$ is then obtained by multiplying with the soft-photon exponentiation factors. We provide first estimates for the various electromagnetic corrections, and in particular quantify their impact on the $\pi K$ ratios and sum rules that are often used as diagnostics of New Physics.