Exclusive and inclusive weak decays of the B-meson

Abstract

A relativistic quark model is applied to the description of semileptonic and non-leptonic charmed decays of the B-meson. The exclusive semileptonic modes B -> D l νand B -> D* l νare described through the universal Isgur-Wise form factor, which is calculated in terms of a constituent quark model wave function for the B-meson. Different approximations for the latter, either based on a phenomenological ansatz or derived from analyses of the meson spectra, are adopted. In particular, two wave functions, constructed via the Hamiltonian light-front formalism using a relativized and a non-relativistic constituent quark model, are considered, obtaining a link between standard spectroscopic quark models and the B-meson decay physics. The inclusive semileptonic and non-leptonic branching ratios are calculated within a convolution approach, inspired by the partonic model and involving the same B-meson wave function used for the evaluation of the exclusive semileptonic modes. Our results for the major branching ratios are consistent with available experimental data and the sum of all the calculated branching ratios turns out to be close to unity. In particular, we found that: i) a remarkable fraction (~ 35%) of semileptonic decay modes occur in non-D, non-D* final states; ii) non-perturbative effects enhance the inclusive b -> c \bar{u} d decay channels, with a sizable contribution provided by internal decays into heavy mesons and baryon-antibaryon pairs; the resulting reduction of the semileptonic branching ratio brings the theoretical prediction in agreement with the experimental value without increasing at the same time the charm counting.