We reconsider the utility of the radiative decay B → γℓν with an energetic photon in the final state for determining parameters of the B-meson light-cone distribution amplitude. Including 1/m b power corrections and radiative corrections at next-to-leading logarithmic order, we perform an improved analysis of the existing BABAR data. We find a provisional lower limit on the inverse moment of the B meson distribution amplitude, λ B , which, due to the inclusion of radiative and power corrections, is significantly lower than the previous result. More data with large photon energy is, however, required to obtain reliable results, as should become available in the future from SuperB factories.

We develop a general theoretical framework for the description of higher-twist baryon operators which makes maximal use of the conformal symmetry of the QCD Lagrangian. The conformal operator basis is constructed for all twists. The complete analysis of the one-loop renormalization of twist-4 operators is given. The evolution equation for three-quark operators of the same chirality turns out to be completely integrable. The spectrum of anomalous dimensions coincides in this case with the energy spectrum of the twist-4 subsector of the SU (2, 2) Heisenberg spin chain. The results are applied to give a general classification and calculate the scale dependence of subleading twist-4 nucleon distribution amplitudes that are relevant for hard exclusive reactions involving a helicity flip. In particular we find an all-order expression (in conformal spin) for the contributions of geometric twist-3 operators to the (light-cone) twist-4 nucleon distribution amplitudes, which are usually referred to as Wandzura-Wilczek terms.

We perform an exploratory study of the allowed parameter range for the CKM-like mixing of hypothetical quarks of a fourth generation. As experimental constraints we use the tree-level determinations of the 3×3 CKM elements and FCNC processes (K-, D-, B d -, B s -mixing and the decay b → sγ) under the assumption that the 4×4 CKM matrix is unitary. For the FCNCs we use some simplifying assumptions concerning the QCD corrections. Typically small mixing with the fourth family is favoured; contrary to expectation, however, we find that also a quite large mixing with the 4th family is not yet excluded.

Abstract:Extending the work by Bukhvostov, Frolov, Lipatov and Kuraev (BFLK) on the renormalization of quasipartonic operators we derive a complete set of two-particle renormalization group kernels that enter QCD evolution equations to twist-four accuracy. It is shown that the 2 → 2 evolution kernels which involve "non-partonic" components of field operators, and, most remarkably, also 2 → 3 kernels do not require independent calculation and can be restored from the known results for quasipartonic operators using conformal symmetry and Lorentz transformations. The kernels are presented for the renormalization of light-ray operators built of chiral fields in a particular basis such that the conformal symmetry is manifest. The results can easily be recast in momentum space, in the form of evolution equations for generalized parton distributions.

We investigate the experimentally allowed parameter space of an extension of the standard model (SM3) by one additional family of fermions. Therefore we extend our previous study of the CKM like mixing constraints of a fourth generation of quarks. In addition to the bounds from tree-level determinations of the 3$\times$3 CKM elements and FCNC processes ($K$-, $D$-, $B_d$-, $B_s$-mixing and the decay $b \to s \gamma$) we also investigate the electroweak $S$, $T$, $U$ parameters, the angle $\gamma$ of the unitarity triangle and the rare decay $B_s \to \mu^+ \mu^-$. Moreover we improve our treatment of the QCD corrections compared to our previous analysis. We also take leptonic contributions into account, but we neglect the mixing among leptons. As a result we find that typically small mixing with the fourth family is favored, but still some sizeable deviations from the SM3 results are not yet excluded. The minimal possible value of $V_{tb}$ is 0.93. Also very large CP-violating effects in $B_s$ mixing seem to be impossible within an extension of the SM3 that consists of an additional fermion family alone. We find a delicate interplay of electroweak and flavor observables, which strongly suggests that a separate treatment of the two sectors is not feasible. In particular we show that the inclusion of the full CKM dependence of the $S$ and $T$ parameters in principle allows the existence of a degenerate fourth generation of quarks.Comment: 38 pages, 26 figures; version identical to PR