Anomalies in Hadronic B Decays

Abstract

In this Letter, we perform fits to B→PP decays, where B={B^{0},B^{+},B_{s}^{0}} and the pseudoscalar P={π,K}, under the assumption of flavor SU(3) symmetry [SU(3)_{F}]. Although the fits to ΔS=0 or ΔS=1 decays individually are good, the combined fit is very poor: there is a 3.6σ disagreement with the SU(3)_{F} limit of the standard model (SM_{SU(3)_{F}}). One can remove this discrepancy by adding SU(3)_{F}-breaking effects, but 1000% SU(3)_{F} breaking is required. The above results are rigorous, group theoretically-no dynamical assumptions have been made. When one adds an assumption motivated by QCD factorization, the discrepancy with the SM_{SU(3)_{F}} grows to 4.4σ.