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# MISSING NUCLEON RESONANCES IN KAON PRODUCTION WITH PIONS AND PHOTONS

## 1 Introduction

Like any composite system the nucleon can be excited into a number of resonant or compound states. However, due to the nonperturbative nature of QCD at nucleon resonance energies no rigorous understanding of $`N^{}`$ resonances on the basis of QCD has emerged. Lattice QCD has only recently begun to contribute to this field. In a recent study  the excitation energies of $`1/2^{}`$ and $`3/2^{}`$ baryon resonances are calculated for the first time on the lattice with improved actions. On the other hand, quark models that contain three constituent valence quarks predict a much richer resonance spectrum  than has been observed in $`\pi N\pi N`$ scattering experiments. Quark model studies have suggested that those ”missing” resonances may couple strongly to other channels, such as the $`K\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`K\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ channels  or final states involving vector mesons. While most of the present information on nucleon resonances has been obtained in $`\pi N\pi N`$ experiments the advent of the newly established electron and photon facilities have made it possible to investigate the mechanism of nucleon resonance excitation with photons and electrons. Experiments producing kaon-hyperon final states have been performed at ELSA  and are being analyzed at JLab.

## 2 Kaon Photoproduction at Tree Level

Within the one-photon approximation, the full amplitude for any photoproduction process can be written in terms of a Bethe-Salpeter equation

$`M=V+VGT,`$ (1)
where $`V`$ represents the driving term for the particular photoproduction process, $`G`$ is the meson-baryon two-particle propagator, and $`T`$ is the hadronic meson-baryon final state interaction. In principle, one would have to solve this equation as a four-dimensional integral equation. However, most studies over the last 30 years have analyzed the $`N(\gamma ,K)\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ reactions in a tree-level isobar framework , neglecting the hadronic final state interaction in Eq. 1. Without rescattering contributions the $`T`$-matrix is simply approximated by the driving term alone which is assumed to be given by a series of tree-level diagrams whose couplings were adjusted to reproduce the experimental data. Due to the poor data quality it was not possible to decide which resonances contributed, even the background terms could not be modelled properly, i.e., if standard SU(3) coupling constants were used for the leading $`g_{K\mathrm{\Lambda }N}`$ and $`g_{K\mathrm{\Sigma }N}`$ couplings the calculations overpredicted the data by an order of magnitude. The recent work on including hadronic form factors in photoproduction reactions  while maintaining gauge invariance has resulted in the proper description of the background terms, allowing the use of approximate SU(3) symmetry to fix the Born coupling constants $`g_{K\mathrm{\Lambda }N}`$ and $`g_{K\mathrm{\Sigma }N}`$.

Here, we use as a starting point the tree-level isobar model described in Ref.  to analyze the $`p(\gamma ,K^+)\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ process in more detail. Guided by a recent coupled-channels analysis , the low-energy resonance part of this model includes three states that have been found to have significant decay widths into the $`K^+\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ channel, the $`S_{11}`$(1650), $`P_{11}`$(1710), and $`P_{13}(1720)`$ resonances. The background part includes the standard Born terms along with the $`K^{}`$(892) and $`K_1`$(1270) vector meson poles in the $`t`$-channel. As in Ref. , we employ the gauge method of Haberzettl  to include hadronic form factors.

The new SAPHIR total cross section data  for the $`p(\gamma ,K^+)\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ channel, shown in Fig. 1, indicate for the first time a structure around $`W=1900`$ MeV. This structure could not be resolved before due to the low quality of the old data. While there are no 3 - or 4-star isospin 1/2 resonances around 1900 MeV in the Particle Data Book , several 2-star states are listed. Of those only the $`D_{13}(2080)`$ has been identified in older $`p(\pi ^{},K^0)\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ analyses  to have a noticeable branching ratio into the $`K\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ channel. On the theoretical side, the constituent quark model by Capstick and Roberts  predicts many new states around 1900 MeV, however, only a few them have been calculated to have a significant $`K\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ decay width . These are the $`[S_{11}]_3`$(1945), $`[P_{11}]_5`$(1975), $`[P_{13}]_4`$(1950), and $`[D_{13}]_3`$(1960) states, where the subscript refers to the band that the state is predicted in. As discussed in more detail in ref.  we have performed fits for each of these possible states, allowing the fit to determine the mass, width and coupling constants of the resonance. While all four of the above resonances have large decay widths into the $`K\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ channel, only the $`D_{13}`$(1960) state is predicted to also have significant photocouplings. Table 1 presents the remarkable agreement, up to the sign, between the quark model prediction and our extracted results for the $`D_{13}`$(1960). For the other three states the partial widths extracted from our fit overestimate the quark model results by up to a factor of 30. Figure 1 compares our models with and without the $`D_{13}`$(1960) with the SAPHIR total cross section data. Our result without this resonance shows only one peak near threshold, while inclusion of the new resonance leads to a second peak at $`W`$ slightly below 1900 MeV, in agreement with the new SAPHIR data. As shown in Ref. , the difference between the two calculations is smaller for the differential cross section and the recoil polarization.

## 3 Kaon Production in a Coupled Channels K-matrix Approach

Going beyond tree level requires inclusion of the rescattering term in Eq. 1. To simplify the integral equation one can rewrite the full Bethe-Salpeter equation in the form

$`K`$ $`=`$ $`V+V\mathrm{Re}(G_{\mathrm{BS}})K`$ (2)
$`T`$ $`=`$ $`K+iK\mathrm{Im}(G_{\mathrm{BS}})T.`$ (3)
where $`G_{BS}`$ is the full propagator. Any truncation of the first equation will still provide a unitary, albeit approximate, solution, as long as i Im$`(G_{BS}`$ correctly describes the discontinuity across the scattering cut. Taking the special choice of placing both intermediate particle on shell leads to $`K=V`$ and simple K-matrix (Born) approximation:

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V}{1iV}}.`$ (4)
This procedure still allows for the resonance widths to be generated dynamically, while the real part of the self-energy is absorbed in an effective resonance mass that is determined by the fit. Enforcing unitarity dynamically therefore requires solving a system of coupled channels with all possible final states. The most recent work that employs the $`K`$-matrix approximation within an effective Lagrangian framework has been performed by Feuster and Mosel . They extract nucleon resonance parameters by simultaneously analyzing all available data for reactions involving the initial and final states $`\gamma N,\pi N,\pi \pi N,\eta N`$ and $`K\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ up to $`W=1.9`$ GeV.

Here we extend the approach of Ref.  to study resonances around 1900 MeV in more detail. We have extended the energy range up to 2.0 GeV and included the $`K\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ final state. Our best fit to all hadronic data of the reactions $`\pi N\pi N`$, $`\pi N\pi \pi N`$, $`\pi N\eta N`$, $`\pi NK\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\pi NK\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ indeed does result in three $`D_{13}`$ excitations, the well-known $`D_{13}`$(1520) state, the 3-star $`D_{13}`$(1700) state and a new $`D_{13}`$ state at 1945 MeV with a large width of 583 MeV. Figure 2 shows our description of the $`D_{13}`$ $`\pi N`$ partial wave; the prominent $`D_{13}`$(1520) is clearly visible, the $`D_{13}`$(1700) is not apparent, while the inclusion of another state around 1900 MeV clearly improves the agreement in the real part which exhibits a zero crossing at that energy. The imaginary part, on the other hand, is missing some strength, possibly indicating the threshold opening of a channel that is not included.

Fig. 3 displays differential cross sections for the $`\pi ^{}pK^0\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ reaction at different W. While the signal is small there is a clear improvement in the description of the data when the new $`D_{13}`$ state is included. Unfortunately, the total cross section data for the same reaction, shown in Fig. 4, are much too poor to distinguish between the two cases.

Is this state identical to the 2-star resonance $`D_{13}`$(2080) listed in the Particle Data Table? Table 2 displays a list of $`D_{13}`$ states below 2.1 GeV predicted by Refs. , along with the Particle Data Table listings and the states found in our fit within the K-matrix approach. A closer examination of the literature reveals that there has been some evidence for two resonances in this partial wave between 1800 and 2200 MeV ; one with a mass centered around 1900 MeV and another with mass around 2080 MeV. It is the former which has been seen prominently in two separate $`p(\pi ^{},K^0)\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ analyses . Thus, even though the remarkable quantitative agreement is probably fortuitous, we believe that the structure seen in the SAPHIR data is in all likelihood identical to the one seen in hadronic $`K\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production and, furthermore, corresponds to the $`D_{13}`$(1960) state predicted by the quark model. The $`D_{13}`$ excitation around 2080 MeV seen in Ref.  may well correspond to the quark model state $`D_{13}`$(2055) in the $`N=4`$ band.

In order to clearly separate these nearby $`D_{13}`$ states, measuring other channels will be helpful. For example, Ref.  predicts the $`D_{13}(1960)`$ to have large decay widths into the $`\eta N`$ and $`\eta ^{}N`$ channels, in contrast to the $`D_{13}(2055)`$ whose branching ratios into these channels are negligible.

What other experiments can help uncover the role played by this resonance? The largest effects are found in the photon asymmetry shown in Fig. 5. For $`W1800`$ MeV, including the new resonance leads to a sign change in the photon asymmetry whose magnitude is almost 100 percent at intermediate angles. Clearly, measuring this observable is well suited to shed more light on the contribution of this state in kaon photoproduction. Ultimately, only a detailed multipole analysis can verify that the observed structure is indeed due to a resonance. With the arrival of new, high-precision cross section and polarization data the kaon photoproduction process will be able to unfold its full potential in the search and study of nucleon resonances.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by US DOE grant DE-FG02-95ER-40907 (CB, AW, and HH), the University Research for Graduate Education (URGE) grant (TM), and the DFG and GSI Darmstadt in Germany (GP and UM).

## References


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The form factors which we discuss in this paper are matrix elements of bilinear quark currents between a $`B`$ meson and a light pseudoscalar or vector meson. These form factors encode strong interaction effects in exclusive, semi-leptonic or radiative $`B`$ decays, such as $`B\pi \mathrm{}\nu `$, $`BK^{}\gamma `$ etc. They also appear as non-perturbative parameters in the factorization theorem for non-leptonic $`B`$ decays in the heavy quark mass limit . The knowledge of these form factors therefore helps us to determine the CKM coupling $`|V_{ub}|`$, and to predict CP violating asymmetries and other quantities in rare $`B`$ decays.

Form factors for heavy-light transitions are presumably dominated by QCD interactions at small momentum transfer and therefore not computable in perturbation theory. Charles et al. have shown that certain symmetries apply to this soft contribution, when the momentum of the final light meson is large . These symmetries reduce the number of independent form factors from ten to three, but they are broken by radiative corrections. In this paper we give a brief derivation of these large recoil symmetry relations and then compute the symmetry-breaking corrections at first order in the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$. (At small recoil the standard heavy quark symmetries apply . We do not discuss this kinematic region in this paper.) This can be done since symmetry-breaking corrections arise only from short distances. An interesting application of our result is the forward-backward asymmetry in the rare decay $`BV\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ (where $`V`$ is a vector meson and $`\mathrm{}`$ a lepton). We show that a measurement of the lepton-invariant mass squared, where this asymmetry vanishes, yields a direct measurement of the loop induced Wilson coefficient $`C_9`$ in the weak effective Hamiltonian , which is almost free of hadronic uncertainties even after including $`\alpha _s`$-corrections. This generalises an observation recently made by Ali et al. .

## 2 Derivation and discussion of large-recoil symmetries

The form factors for $`\overline{B}`$ decays into a pseudoscalar meson are defined by the following Lorentz decompositions of bilinear quark current matrix elements:

$$P(p^{})|\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu b|\overline{B}(p)=f_+(q^2)\left[p^\mu +p^\mu \frac{M^2m_P^2}{q^2}q^\mu \right]+f_0(q^2)\frac{M^2m_P^2}{q^2}q^\mu ,$$
(1)
$$P(p^{})|\overline{q}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }q_\nu b|\overline{B}(p)=\frac{if_T(q^2)}{M+m_P}\left[q^2(p^\mu +p^\mu )(M^2m_P^2)q^\mu \right],$$
(2)
where $`M`$ is the $`B`$ meson mass, $`m_P`$ the mass of the pseudoscalar meson and $`q=pp^{}`$. The relevant form factors for $`B`$ decays into vector mesons are defined as

$$V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu b|\overline{B}(p)=\frac{2iV(q^2)}{M+m_V}ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon _\nu ^{}p_\rho ^{}p_\sigma ,$$
(3)
$`V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5b|\overline{B}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`2m_VA_0(q^2){\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}q}{q^2}}q^\mu +(M+m_V)A_1(q^2)\left[\epsilon ^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}q}{q^2}}q^\mu \right]`$ (4)
$`A_2(q^2){\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}q}{M+m_V}}\left[p^\mu +p^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{M^2m_V^2}{q^2}}q^\mu \right],`$
$$V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }q_\nu b|\overline{B}(p)=2T_1(q^2)ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon _\nu ^{}p_\rho p_\sigma ^{},$$
(5)
$`V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\gamma _5q_\nu b|\overline{B}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`(i)T_2(q^2)\left[(M^2m_V^2)\epsilon ^\mu (\epsilon ^{}q)(p^\mu +p^\mu )\right]`$ (6)
$`+(i)T_3(q^2)(\epsilon ^{}q)\left[q^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{M^2m_V^2}}(p^\mu +p^\mu )\right],`$
where $`m_V`$ ($`\epsilon `$) is the mass (polarisation vector) of the vector meson and we use the sign convention $`ϵ^{0123}=1`$.

We begin with a qualitative discussion of strong interaction symmetries and radiative corrections for form factors in $`B`$ meson decay in the limit $`M/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}\mathrm{}`$. ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ is the strong interaction scale.) It is useful to briefly recapitulate the implications of heavy quark symmetry, when the final meson $`P(V)`$ is also heavy, for example a $`D`$ meson.

### 2.1 Recapitulation: heavy-heavy form factors

As long as the velocity transfer to the $`D`$ meson remains of order 1, we may assume that the heavy quarks interact with the spectator quark (and other soft degrees of freedom) exclusively via soft exchanges characterised by momentum transfers much smaller than the heavy quark masses. Any hard interaction would imply large momentum of the spectator quark in the $`B`$ meson or $`D`$ meson or both, and such a configuration is assumed to be highly improbable. The simplifications that occur when heavy quarks interact only with soft gluons are formalised as heavy quark effective theory (HQET) . The heavy quark momentum $`p_Q`$ ($`Q=b,c`$) is decomposed into a large “kinematic” term and a small residual momentum ($`k^\mu `$),

$`p_Q^\mu =m_Qv^\mu +k^\mu ,|k|m_Q,`$ (7)
where $`v`$ is the heavy meson velocity. To leading order in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_Q`$, the interaction of heavy quarks with soft gluons is described by the effective lagrangian

$`_{\mathrm{HQET}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{Q}_v(ivD)Q_v+O(1/m_Q)`$ (8)
Here $`Q_v(x)=e^{im_Qvx}\frac{1+v/}{2}Q(x)`$ denotes the large components of the heavy quark spinor field with its leading $`m_Q`$-dependence made explicit, and $`D^\mu =^\mu ig_sA^\mu `$ is the covariant derivative in QCD.

Eq. (8) implies the well-known spin and heavy flavour symmetries which arise in the infinite quark mass limit . A consequence of these symmetries is that the three pseudoscalar and seven vector form factors defined in Eqs. (1)-(6) are all related to a single function of velocity transfer $`vv^{}`$, $`\xi (vv^{})`$, whose absolute normalization is known at zero recoil ($`\xi (1)=1`$) owing to current conservation. The heavy quark symmetries are violated by radiative corrections (as well as higher dimension operators in the effective lagrangian), such as the one shown in Fig. 1b. (The disconnected spectator quark line in Figs. 1a and 1b is meant to indicate that it is connected to the other lines only via soft exchanges. Fig. 1a therefore stands for the leading term in the heavy quark mass limit.) The symmetry-breaking effects are caused only by the short-distance part of Fig. 1b. They are accounted for by multiplicatively renormalising the heavy quark current in HQET, $`[\overline{c}\mathrm{\Gamma }b]_{\mathrm{QCD}}=_\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}C_{\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}}(vv^{},\alpha _s)[c_v^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}b_v]_{\mathrm{HQET}}`$. Hence, neglecting $`1/m_Q`$ corrections, there remain nine parameter-free relations between the pseudoscalar and vector form factors.

The assumption that any interaction with the spectator quark is soft means that diagrams such as those in Fig. 1c and 1d must vanish, when some of the gluon’s momentum components stay finite in the heavy quark mass limit. This is clearly an approximation, whose validity depends on the behaviour of the $`B`$ and $`D`$ meson wave functions. A non-vanishing contribution from these diagrams cannot be accounted for by multiplicative renormalisation of the heavy quark currents. In fact, it is not accounted for to any order in the heavy quark expansion in the HQET formalism. As we shall see, a non-vanishing contribution from “hard spectator interactions” is one of the main differences between heavy-heavy form factors and heavy-light form factors at large recoil.

### 2.2 Heavy-light form factors at large recoil

We now turn to decays into light mesons and require the light meson to have energy $`E=(M^2+m^2q^2)/(2M)`$ of order $`M/2`$. More precisely, we require that $`EM/2M`$ or, equivalently, $`q^2M^2`$. Let us continue to assume that the $`b`$ quark and the energetic $`u`$ quark, created in the $`bu`$ transition, interact with the spectator quark (and other soft degrees of freedom) exclusively via soft exchanges. We may then continue to use Eq. (8) for the $`b`$ quark. A similar simplification occurs for the energetic light quark, for which we may use the eikonal approximation.

We introduce a light-like vector $`n_{}^\mu `$ ($`n_{}^2=0`$) parallel to the four-momentum $`p^{}`$ of the light meson. (In the following we always neglect effects quadratic in the light meson mass, so that $`p_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}0`$. We retain “kinematic” corrections linear in $`m_P`$ or $`m_V`$ introduced through the definition of the form factors.) Since we are discussing the soft contribution to the form factor, the $`u`$ quark created in the decay of the $`b`$ quark carries almost all the energy of the light meson, while the spectator quark is soft. Hence, we write

$`p_u^\mu =En_{}^\mu +k^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu },|k^{}|E,`$ (9)
where $`p_u^{}`$ is the momentum of the $`u`$ quark and $`k^{}^\mu `$ is a small residual momentum. To leading order in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/E`$, the interaction of energetic quarks with soft gluons is described by the eikonal lagrangian

$`_{\mathrm{eik}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{q}_n{\displaystyle \frac{n/_+}{2}}(in_{}D)q_n+O(1/E_q),`$ (10)
where $`q_n(x)=e^{iE_qn_{}x}\frac{n/_{}n/_+}{4}q(x)`$ are the large components of the light quark spinor field. Here $`n_+=2vn_{}`$ is another light-like vector with $`n_+n_{}=2`$ and $`E_qE`$ is the energy of the light quark. (The factor $`n/_+/2`$ in Eq. (10) can be omitted in the calculation of on-shell correlation functions.)

In the large recoil limit, the combination of Eqs. (8) and (10) implies non-trivial relations between the soft contributions to the form factors , which we rederive below. There is an important distinction between the effective lagrangian for heavy quarks and for energetic light quarks. The effective lagrangian (10) applies to light mesons produced in an asymmetric configuration, in which a single quark carries almost all momentum. Even for light-cone dominated processes this is an atypical configuration (the preferred one having nearly equal momentum of the quark and antiquark), not speaking of the wave functions that diagonalise the strong interaction hamiltonian. For this reason, although the interaction (10) is spin-symmetric, the symmetry is not realised in the hadronic spectrum, and there exists no relation between the soft contributions to the form factors of pseudoscalar and vector mesons. Furthermore, the probability that such an asymmetric parton configuration hadronises into a light meson depends on the energy of the meson. Hence, the soft contributions to the form factors are energy-dependent functions, whose absolute normalization is not known. This is to be contrasted to the case of heavy-heavy form factors, for which spin symmetry relates pseudoscalar and vector mesons, and for which the Isgur-Wise form factor $`\xi (vv^{})`$ is independent on the heavy quark mass.

To work out the large-recoil symmetry constraints on the soft form factor, we use a technique familiar from HQET. Continuing to neglect hard interactions, we write $`[\overline{q}\mathrm{\Gamma }b]_{\mathrm{QCD}}=[\overline{q}_n\mathrm{\Gamma }b_v]_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. The form factors at large recoil are then represented by

$`L(En_{})|\overline{q}_n\mathrm{\Gamma }b_v|B(Mv)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{tr}\left[A_L(E)\overline{}_\mathrm{L}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{B}\right],`$ (11)
where $`L=P,V`$ and

$`\overline{}_\mathrm{L}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\begin{array}{c}(\gamma _5)\\ \epsilon /^{}\end{array}\right\}{\displaystyle \frac{n/_+n/_{}}{4}}\begin{array}{cc}& L=P\hfill \\ & L=V\hfill \end{array}_\mathrm{B}={\displaystyle \frac{1+v/}{2}}(\gamma _5)`$ (16)
with $`\epsilon `$ the polarisation vector of the vector meson. (The generalisation of $`_\mathrm{B}`$ to the case of a vector $`B`$ meson is obvious. However, in this paper we restrict ourselves to pseudoscalar $`B`$ mesons. In Eq. (11) we assume the conventional relativistic normalisation of the states. The factor $`\sqrt{M}`$ which would then normally appear in $`_\mathrm{B}`$ is absorbed into $`A_L(E)`$.) The function $`A_L(E)`$ contains the long-distance dynamics, but it is independent on the Dirac structure $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the current, because the effective lagrangians (8) and (10) do not contain a Dirac matrix. The most general form $`A_L(E)`$ can take is therefore

$$A_L(E)=a_{1L}(E)+a_{2L}(E)v/+a_{3L}(E)n/_{}+a_{4L}(E)n/_{}v/,$$
(17)
but the projectors $`\overline{}_\mathrm{L}`$, $`_\mathrm{B}`$ imply that not all the $`a_{iL}(E)`$ are independent. Accounting for these projectors, the most general form is

$`A_P(E)`$ $`=`$ $`2E\xi _P(E),`$ (18)
$`A_V(E)`$ $`=`$ $`En/_{}\left(\xi _{}(E){\displaystyle \frac{v/}{2}}\xi _{}(E)\right)`$ (19)
with a conveniently chosen overall normalisation. It follows that the three pseudoscalar meson form factors are all related to a single function $`\xi _P(E)`$ and the seven vector meson form factors are all related to two unknown functions, $`\xi _{}(E)`$ and $`\xi _{}(E)`$. The latter two functions are chosen such that only $`\xi _{}(E)`$ contributes the form factors for a transversely polarised vector meson and only $`\xi _{}(E)`$ contributes the production of a longitudinally polarised vector meson. Performing the trace in Eq. (11), we obtain

$`P(p^{})|\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu b|\overline{B}(p)=2E\xi _P(E)n_{}^\mu ,`$ (20)
$`P(p^{})|\overline{q}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }q_\nu b|\overline{B}(p)=2iE\xi _P(E)\left((ME)n_{}^\mu Mv^\mu \right)`$ (21)
for pseudoscalar mesons, and

$`V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu b|\overline{B}(p)=2iE\xi _{}(E)ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon _\nu ^{}n_\rho v_\sigma ,`$ (22)
$`V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5b|\overline{B}(p)=2E\left(\xi _{}(E)(\epsilon ^\mu \epsilon ^{}vn_{}^\mu )+\xi _{}(E)\epsilon ^{}vn_{}^\mu \right),`$ (23)
$`V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }q_\nu b|\overline{B}(p)=2EM\xi _{}(E)ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon _\nu ^{}v_\rho n_\sigma ,`$ (24)
$`V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\gamma _5q_\nu b|\overline{B}(p)=(2iE)[\xi _{}(E)M(\epsilon ^\mu \epsilon ^{}vn_{}^\mu )`$
$`+\xi _{}(E)\epsilon ^{}v((ME)n_{}^\mu Mv^\mu )]`$ (25)
for vector mesons, in agreement with Ref. . (Note, however, the different convention for the longitudinal form factor with $`\xi _{}(E)=m_V/M\zeta _{}(E)`$, $`\zeta _{}(E)`$ being defined in Ref. . We also neglect some $`m_V^2/M^2`$ terms that should not be kept at leading order in $`1/M`$.) Comparing Eqs. (1)-(6) with Eqs. (20)-(25), we find the following form factor relations:

$`f_+(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{M}{2E}}f_0(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{M}{M+m_P}}f_T(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\xi _P(E)`$ (26)
for pseudoscalar mesons and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{M+m_V}}V(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{M+m_V}{2E}}A_1(q^2)=T_1(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{M}{2E}}T_2(q^2)=\xi _{}(E),`$ (27)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{m_V}{E}}A_0(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M+m_V}{2E}}A_1(q^2){\displaystyle \frac{Mm_V}{M}}A_2(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{M}{2E}}T_2(q^2)T_3(q^2)=\xi _{}(E)`$ (28)
for vector mesons. These relations are valid for the soft contribution to the form factors at large recoil, neglecting corrections of order $`1/m_b`$ and $`\alpha _s`$. (The $`\alpha _s`$ corrections will be computed below.)

We must now examine more carefully our assumption that the $`b`$ quark and the $`u`$ quark created at the weak interaction vertex interact with the spectator quark exclusively via the exchange of soft gluons. As in the case of a heavy-to-heavy transition, there will be a vertex correction (of the type shown at one loop in Fig. 1b). The hard part of this vertex correction does not respect the symmetry relations, but it can be accounted for in perturbation theory by multiplicatively renormalising the current $`[u_n\mathrm{\Gamma }b_v]_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ in the effective theory just as in the case of a heavy-to-heavy transition. There is an additional complication compared to the heavy-heavy case, because there is a long-distance sensitive contribution from energetic gluons whose momentum is collinear to the momentum of the outgoing $`u`$ quark. This “hard-collinear” contribution is not naturally part of the soft form factor, neither is it perturbatively computable. We shall discuss this in some more detail later, but the structure of the argument does not change due to this extra contribution.

The important new element of the discussion is provided by the hard spectator interaction shown in Figs. 1c and 1d. In the absence of a hard spectator interaction, the light meson is produced in a parton configuration, in which the $`u`$ quark carries all momentum of the meson, up to an amount of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ in the $`B`$ meson rest frame. In contrast, a hard interaction with the spectator quark allows the meson to be formed in a preferred configuration, in which the momentum is distributed nearly equally between the two quarks. To estimate the relative importance of the two contributions, we need to know the amplitude for producing a light meson in an asymmetric configuration.

We consider first the hard contribution. (A more extensive version of the following discussion can be found in Sect. 3.2 of .) Since both quarks that form the light meson have momentum of order $`M`$ by assumption, and the gluon in Figs. 1c and 1d has virtuality of order $`M\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, this contribution can be computed by means of the hard-scattering approach to exclusive processes . We shall do this explicitly below; the resulting scaling behaviour for the pseudoscalar meson form factors is

$$f_{+,0,T;\mathrm{hard}}(q^20)\alpha _s(\sqrt{M\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}})\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}}{M}\right)^{3/2}.$$
(29)
The scaling law for the soft contribution can be derived in different ways, but all of them make use of the endpoint behaviour of the pion’s light-cone distribution amplitude . If we assume that the distribution amplitude vanishes linearly when the longitudinal momentum fraction of the spectator quark approaches zero, as is suggested by its asymptotic form, we find

$$f_{+,0,T;\mathrm{soft}}(q^20)\xi _P(EM/2)\sqrt{\frac{M}{E}}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}}{E}\right)^{3/2}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}}{M}\right)^{3/2}.$$
(30)
(This scaling law was first derived in the context of QCD sum rules . Recent evaluations of the sum rule including radiative corrections  also agree with Eqs. (29), (30).) The hard and soft contributions to Figs. 1c and 1d are not separately well-defined. The hard-scattering kernel has a logarithmic endpoint divergence ; one must introduce a factorisation scale and factorise the endpoint divergence into the soft form factor $`\xi _P(E)`$. (In the context of QCD sum rules this point is also discussed in .). We can summarize this discussion by the following, tentative, factorization formula for a heavy-light form factor at large recoil, and at leading order in $`1/M`$:

$`f_i(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`C_i\xi _P(E)+\mathrm{\Phi }_BT_i\mathrm{\Phi }_P,`$ (31)
where $`\xi _P(E)`$ is the soft part of the form factor, to which the symmetries discussed above apply; $`T_i`$ is a hard-scattering kernel (with the endpoint divergence regulated in a certain manner), convoluted with the light-cone distribution amplitudes of the $`B`$ meson and the light pseudoscalar meson; $`C_i=1+O(\alpha _s)`$ is the hard vertex renormalisation (including, at present, the hard-collinear contribution discussed above). Eq. (29) implies that the hard spectator interaction (Figs. 1c and 1d) is suppressed by one power of $`\alpha _s`$ relative to the soft contribution (Fig. 1a). Hence the form factor relation (26) is indeed correct at leading order in $`1/M`$ and $`\alpha _s`$. The correction at order $`\alpha _s`$ can be computed in terms of a hard vertex renormalisation and the hard spectator interaction diagrams. This will be done explicitly in Sect. 3.

The previous discussion applies unmodified to form factors of transversely polarised vector mesons. For longitudinally polarised vector mesons, we need to keep in mind that $`\xi _{}(E)/\xi _{}(E)m_V/E`$. Therefore $`m_V/E\times A_0`$, $`A_2`$ and $`T_3`$ scale as $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/M)^{5/2}`$, when one considers longitudinally polarised vector mesons. But since the longitudinal polarisation vector is enhanced by a factor $`E/m_V`$ in the large-energy limit, this implies that the form factors above times the polarisation vectors and the form factors of transversely polarised vector mesons all follow the same scaling laws in the heavy quark limit, and they all obey a factorisation formula analogous to Eq. (31). In particular, the two terms of Eqs. (23) and (25) containing $`\xi _{}(E)`$ and $`\xi _{}(E)`$, respectively, both scale as $`M^{1/2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}^{3/2}`$ in the heavy quark/large energy limit.

Our discussion up to now has ignored the possibility that the configuration in which one quark carries almost all momentum, i.e. the soft contribution to the form factors, may be suppressed by a Sudakov form factor. If this were the case, then the term $`C_i\xi _P(E)`$ in Eq. (31) would be subleading compared to the hard spectator term $`\mathrm{\Phi }_BT_i\mathrm{\Phi }_P`$, and perhaps it could be ignored entirely. In this situation the form factor would be computable completely in the hard-scattering approach and the symmetry relations (26)-(28) would seem to be irrelevant. This is assumed, for example, by the treatment of the $`B\pi `$ form factors in Refs. . Since in reality the energy of the outgoing light quark is not particularly large (around $`2.5`$GeV), it is equally possible that the Sudakov form factor does not suppress the soft contribution sufficiently, so that the symmetry relations remain approximately valid. As our default power counting we shall therefore take the case that the soft contribution dominates by one power of $`\alpha _s`$, as discussed above.

## 3 Calculation of symmetry-breaking corrections

In this section we compute the corrections of order $`\alpha _s`$ to the symmetry relations (20)-(28). As discussed above these are of two distinct origins and we begin with the more familiar case of vertex renormalisation (Fig. 1b), and then turn to the hard spectator interaction.

### 3.1 Vertex corrections

The one-loop diagram in Fig. 1b contains ultraviolet and infrared divergences. The UV divergences are treated by dimensional regularisation ($`d=42ϵ`$); the IR divergences are regulated by introducing a (small) mass term $`\lambda `$ for the gluon, and then factored into the soft form factor.

Using standard techniques, we obtain for a generic Dirac structure $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ at the heavy-to-light vertex the following result for the one-loop vertex correction:

$`\overline{u}(p^{})\mathrm{\Gamma }(p^{},p)u(p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\overline{u}(p^{})[\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2m_b^2}{(m_b^2q^2)^2}}2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2m_b^2}{(m_b^2q^2)^2}}`$ (32)
$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{Li}_2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{m_b^2}}\right]2{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{q^2}}\mathrm{ln}[1{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{m_b^2}}]3{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2}}\}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\widehat{ϵ}}}+3\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{q^2}}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{m_b^2}}\right]\right\}\gamma ^\alpha \gamma ^\beta \mathrm{\Gamma }\gamma _\beta \gamma _\alpha `$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{q^2+m_b^2\mathrm{ln}\left[1\frac{q^2}{m_b^2}\right]}{2q^4}}\gamma ^\alpha p/\mathrm{\Gamma }p/^{}\gamma _\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{q^2+(m_b^2q^2)\mathrm{ln}\left[1\frac{q^2}{m_b^2}\right]}{2q^4}}m_b\gamma ^\alpha p/\mathrm{\Gamma }\gamma _\alpha `$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{q^2+(m_b^22q^2)\mathrm{ln}\left[1\frac{q^2}{m_b^2}\right]}{q^4}}m_b\mathrm{\Gamma }p/^{}]u(p),`$
where $`\overline{u}(p^{})`$ and $`u(p)`$ denote the external Dirac spinors for the light and heavy quark, respectively, and we have defined $`1/\widehat{ϵ}1/ϵ\gamma _E+\mathrm{ln}4\pi `$. For a given current $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, the product $`\gamma ^\alpha \gamma ^\beta \mathrm{\Gamma }\gamma _\beta \gamma _\alpha `$ is evaluated in the naive dimensional regularisation (NDR) scheme with anticommuting $`\gamma _5`$, and the $`1/\widehat{ϵ}`$ pole is then subtracted. This corresponds to defining the bilinear quark current matrix elements in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$/NDR scheme.

The coefficients $`C_i`$ in Eq. (31) would normally be obtained by computing the one-loop vertex correction in the HQET/eikonal effective theory, using the same infrared regularisation as in the full theory calculation above. The one-loop correction to $`C_i`$ is simply the difference between the two calculations and if both theories have the same infrared behaviour, $`C_i`$ must turn out to be independent on the infrared regularisation. This is not the case here, because the effective theory does not correctly reproduce the hard-collinear infrared divergence. However, Eq. (32) shows that all infrared divergent terms have the same structure as the original current $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, so that they can simply be absorbed into a redefinition of the the functions $`\xi _P`$, $`\xi _{}`$ and $`\xi _{}`$, irrespective of their origin. (The same is true for the quark self-energy contributions; therefore we do not need to calculate them explicitly.) In other words, the hard-collinear contributions preserve the HQET/large-recoil symmetries and can hence be disregarded in the discussion of symmetry-breaking corrections.

We therefore find it convenient to define the factorisation scheme (or renormalisation conventions for the “soft form factors”) by imposing the condition that

$`f_+\xi _P,V{\displaystyle \frac{M+m_V}{M}}\xi _{},A_0{\displaystyle \frac{E}{m_V}}\xi _{},`$ (33)
hold exactly to all orders in perturbation theory. (Such a “physical” scheme is similar to defining the quark parton distribution to be the structure function $`F_2`$ in deep inelastic scattering to all orders in perturbation theory.) Having fixed the factorisation scheme, we insert, for a given current $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, Eq. (32) into Eq. (11) and express the result in terms of the uncorrected (tree-level) soft form factors $`\xi _P^{(0)}`$, $`\xi _{}^{(0)}`$ and $`\xi _{}^{(0)}`$. The relation between these uncorrected form factors and the corrected ones $`\xi _P`$, $`\xi _{}`$ and $`\xi _{}`$ is determined by Eq. (33) and by eliminating $`\xi _P^{(0)}`$, $`\xi _{}^{(0)}`$ and $`\xi _{}^{(0)}`$, we finally express all other form factors in terms of $`\xi _P`$, $`\xi _{}`$ and $`\xi _{}`$. The result reads

$`f_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2E}{M}}\xi _P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[22L\right]\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }f_0,`$ (34)
$`f_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M+m_P}{M}}\xi _P\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}+2L\right]\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }f_T`$ (35)
for the remaining form factors of pseudoscalar mesons and

$`A_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2E}{M+m_V}}\xi _{}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }A_1,`$ (36)
$`A_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{Mm_V}}\left(\xi _{}\xi _{}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[2+2L\right]\right)\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }A_2,`$ (37)
$`T_1`$ $`=`$ $`\xi _{}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}L\right]\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }T_1,`$ (38)
$`T_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2E}{M}}\xi _{}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}L\right]\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }T_2,`$ (39)
$`T_3`$ $`=`$ $`\xi _{}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}L\right]\right)`$ (41)
$`\xi _{}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}2+4L\right]\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Delta }T_3`$
for the remaining form factors of vector mesons. Here we introduced the abbreviation

$`L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2E}{M2E}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{2E}{M}}`$ (42)
with $`L1`$ for $`EM/2`$ ($`q^20`$). In defining $`L`$ we identified the $`b`$ quark mass $`m_b`$ and the $`B`$ meson mass $`M`$, since the difference is a $`1/M`$ effect.

The form factors receive a further additive correction from the interaction with the spectator quark, indicated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }F_i`$ in Eqs. (34)-(41). This correction will be calculated in the next subsection, see Eqs. (60), (64), (65) below. The tensor form factors $`f_T`$, $`T_{1,2,3}`$ are scale-dependent, since the defining tensor currents are not conserved.

### 3.2 Hard spectator interaction

#### 3.2.1 General considerations

As discussed above a further correction at order $`\alpha _s`$ arises from the spectator interaction shown in Figs. 1c and d. To leading order in $`1/M`$ we can restrict ourselves to the two-particle light-cone distribution amplitudes of the $`B`$ meson and the light meson.

The momenta of the $`b`$ quark and the spectator antiquark in the $`\overline{B}`$ meson are chosen as

$$p_b^\mu =m_bv^\mu ,l^\mu =\frac{l_+}{2}n_+^\mu +l_{}^\mu +\frac{l_{}}{2}n_{}^\mu ,$$
(43)
respectively, and

$`k_1^\mu =uEn_{}^\mu +k_{}^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{k}_{}^2}{4uE}}n_+^\mu ,k_2^\mu =\overline{u}En_{}^\mu k_{}^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{k}_{}^2}{4\overline{u}E}}n_+^\mu `$ (44)
denote the momenta of the quark and antiquark in the light meson. As usual we have defined $`\overline{u}=1u`$. Note that all components of the spectator momentum $`l`$ are of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, while $`k_{1,2}`$ are of order $`M`$ along the $`n_{}`$-direction with transverse components of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$.

The contribution of Figs. 1c and d to the heavy-to-light current matrix elements is now given by the convolution formula

$`L|\overline{q}\mathrm{\Gamma }b|B^{(\mathrm{HSA})}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \alpha _sC_F}{N_C}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑u{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑l_+M_{\beta \gamma }^BM_{\delta \alpha }^L𝒯_{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }^\mathrm{\Gamma }.`$ (45)
Here $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ denotes an arbitrary Dirac matrix in the heavy-to-light current, and $`𝒯_{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }^\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the hard-scattering amplitude, to be calculated from the Feynman graphs in Figs. 1c and d. Dirac indices $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta `$ are written explicitly, while the colour trace has already been performed.

The relevant non-perturbative bound state dynamics of the initial and final mesons is encoded in the two-particle light-cone projectors $`M^B`$ and $`M^L`$ (not to be confused with the matrices $`_B`$ and $`_L`$ used in Eq. (16)). The expressions for these projectors are obtained after Fourier transformation to momentum space of the light-cone expansion of matrix elements of quark-antiquark operators. For light pseudoscalar and vector mesons the relevant details can be found in Ref.  and Ref. , respectively, and the complete expressions are summarised in Appendix A. For pseudoscalar mesons with momentum $`p^{}`$ we have

$`M_{\delta \alpha }^P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_P}{4}}p/^{}\gamma _5\varphi (u)+\mathrm{},`$ (46)
where $`f_P`$ is the pseudoscalar decay constant; for vector mesons

$`M_{\delta \alpha }^V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}\left\{f_{}\epsilon /^{}p/^{}\varphi _{}(u)+f_Vp/^{}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V}{E}}(v\epsilon ^{})\varphi _{}(u)+\mathrm{}\right\}_{\delta \alpha }`$ (47)
with $`f_V`$ and $`f_{}`$ denoting the longitudinal and transverse vector meson decay constants, defined through

$$V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\gamma _\mu q^{}|0=if_Vm_V\epsilon _\mu ^{},V(p^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^{}|0=f_{}(p_\mu ^{}\epsilon _\nu ^{}p_\nu ^{}\epsilon _\mu ^{}).$$
(48)
The ellipses in Eqs. (46), (47) denote twist-3 two-particle contributions as specified in Appendix A.

The light-cone projectors for heavy mesons have not yet been discussed in full generality in the literature. As shown in Appendix B the projector we need is

$`M_{\beta \gamma }^B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_BM}{4}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1+\overline{)}v}{2}}\left\{\varphi _+^B(l_+)\overline{)}n_++\varphi _{}^B(l_+)(\overline{)}n_{}l_+\gamma _{}^\nu {\displaystyle \frac{}{l_{}^\nu }})\right\}\gamma _5\right]_{\beta \gamma }|_{l=\frac{l_+}{2}n_+}.`$ (49)
The derivative acts on the amplitude, expressed in terms of the spectator quark momentum $`l`$, and subsequently $`l`$ is set equal to its plus-component. (In writing Eq. (49) we have assumed the relation (116), which is valid only when one sets to zero the three-particle contributions to $`\varphi _{}^B(l_+)`$. However, keeping the more general form (113) would not alter our result, since the symmetry-breaking correction turns out to involve only the distribution amplitude $`\varphi _+^B(l_+)`$.)

In Feynman gauge, the hard-scattering amplitude is given by the expression

$`𝒯_{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }^\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{m_b(1+v/)+l/k/_2}{(m_bv+lk_2)^2m_b^2}}\gamma _\mu +\gamma _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{k/_1+k/_2l/}{(k_1+k_2l)^2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\right]_{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(lk_2)^2}}\left[\gamma ^\mu \right]_{\gamma \delta }`$ (50)
$``$ $`\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{m_b(1+v/)\overline{u}En/_{}}{4\overline{u}^2l_+m_bE^2}}\gamma _\mu +\gamma _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{En/_{}l/}{4\overline{u}l_+^2E^2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\right]_{\alpha \beta }\left[\gamma ^\mu \right]_{\gamma \delta }.`$
To arrive at the second line we approximated the hard scattering amplitude by its leading term in the heavy quark limit, neglecting terms of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/M`$. The numerator of the second term, $`En/_{}l/`$, is an exception to this. Here the subleading term $`l/`$ has to be kept, since the leading term is annihilated by the leading-twist light-cone projection operators: $`\gamma ^\mu M^{P,V}\gamma _\mu n/_{}=0`$. As a consequence both terms in the second line of Eq. (50) are of order $`1/(M\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}})`$ in the heavy quark limit.

The denominator of the first term vanishes quadratically with $`\overline{u}`$. Assuming, as usual, that the leading-twist light-cone distribution amplitudes of the light mesons vanish only linearly with $`\overline{u}`$, the term $`m_b(1+v/)`$ in the numerator generates a contribution that diverges logarithmically for $`\overline{u}0`$. Hence the amplitude is dominated by small gluon virtualities, i.e. soft physics. In order to justify our factorisation ansatz (31), we have to show that the soft (endpoint dominated) contributions do not break the heavy quark/large recoil symmetries and can be accounted for by a redefinition of $`\xi _{P,,}`$. After this redefinition the hard scattering term $`\mathrm{\Phi }_BT_i\mathrm{\Phi }_P`$ in (31) is free of soft (endpoint) singularities and can be computed consistently in the hard scattering approach. To demonstrate this, we insert $`1=(n/_+n/_{})/4+(n/_{}n/_+)/4`$ in front of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in the trace

$`\text{tr}(M^L\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+v/)\gamma ^\mu M^B\gamma _\mu )=2\text{tr}(v/M^L\mathrm{\Gamma }M_B)`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{tr}(v/M^Ln/_+n/_{}\mathrm{\Gamma }M_B)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{tr}(v/M^Ln/_{}n/_+\mathrm{\Gamma }M_B).`$ (51)
The first term is already of the form of Eq. (11), and therefore respects the heavy quark/large recoil symmetry relations, while the second term with $`n/_{}`$ next to $`M_L`$ vanishes. This shows that the endpoint singularities can be factorised into the soft form factors as necessary for the validity of the factorisation formula (31). Consequently, the symmetry-breaking corrections are due to large-momentum transfer interactions.

However, a further check needs to be performed. Some of the twist-3 distribution amplitudes that contribute to $`M^L`$ do not vanish as $`\overline{u}0`$ and generate terms that diverge linearly at the endpoint. The linear divergence produces an additional factor $`M/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ that compensates the $`1/M`$ suppression of the twist-3 distribution amplitudes. Therefore, twist-3 distribution amplitudes contribute at leading order to the soft part of the form factors. In order to justify our factorisation ansatz, we have to show that these endpoint contributions can also be absorbed into a renormalisation of $`\xi _{P,,}`$. Furthermore, the expression $`En/_{}`$ in the second term of (50) is not annihilated by the twist-3 part of the projector $`M^L`$, and this provides another source of leading power contributions. This contribution must also be shown to satisfy the symmetry relations. The first of these two contributions can be treated in a manner analogous to Eq. (51). The second term in the second line of (51), which does not have the required symmetry-preserving structure, does not vanish, when twist-3 terms are included in $`M^L`$, but it turns out to be of order $`\overline{u}`$ as $`\overline{u}0`$, hence not leading to the power-counting breaking linear divergence. Indeed, for a pseudoscalar meson, we obtain

$$M^Pn/_{}n/_+=\frac{if_P}{4}\mu _P\gamma _5(\varphi _p+\frac{\varphi _\sigma ^{}}{6})n/_{}n/_++\mathrm{},$$
(52)
where the ellipsis denote the contributions from distribution amplitudes which vanish as $`\overline{u}0`$. The important point is that while $`\varphi _p`$ and $`\varphi _\sigma ^{}`$ do not vanish at the endpoint, the combination of both which appears in Eq. (52) does. Similarly, we obtain

$`M^Vn/_{}n/_+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{im_V}{4}}[f_V(\epsilon /^{}(v\epsilon ^{})n/_{})(g_{}^{(v)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{}^{(a)^{}})`$ (53)
$`+f_{}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V}{E}}(v\epsilon ^{})(h_{}^{(t)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}h_{}^{(s)^{}})]n/_{}n/_++\mathrm{},`$
which also vanishes at $`\overline{u}=0`$ (see Appendix A). This shows that all power-counting breaking linearly divergent contributions can be accounted for by a renormalisation of $`\xi _{P,,}`$. The second of the two contributions discussed above is easily seen to preserve the heavy quark/large recoil symmetries, since

$$\text{tr}(M_L\gamma ^\mu n/_{}\mathrm{\Gamma }M_B\gamma _\mu )=\text{tr}(\gamma _\mu M_L\gamma ^\mu n/_{}n/_+n/_{}\mathrm{\Gamma }M_B)$$
(54)
has already the structure required by Eq. (11).

Before concluding this general discussion, we note that only the distribution amplitude $`\varphi _+^B(l_+)`$ enters the symmetry breaking (but computable) corrections. This is seen immediately for the first term in Eq. (50) since only the term $`\overline{u}En/_{}`$ is relevant for the symmetry breaking terms. The $`n/_{}`$ annihilates the corresponding term in $`M^B`$, and since there is no dependence on $`l_{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(l_+)`$ does not contribute. In the case of the second term of Eq. (50) we need to examine the $`l/`$ term. The term proportional to $`n/_{}`$ in the $`B`$-meson projector (49) drops out since the factor $`n/_{}`$ can be anticommuted in such a way that it annihilates with $`M_{\delta \alpha }^L`$. But the derivative term in Eq. (49) survives and leaves a transverse Dirac matrix $`\gamma _{}^\nu `$ to the left of the matrix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Inserting $`1=(n/_+n/_{})/4+(n/_{}n/_+)/4`$, the “wrong” projector $`(n/_{}n/_+)/4`$ is annihilated by the leading twist terms in $`M^L`$, since $`\gamma _{}^\nu `$ anti-commutes with $`n/_\pm `$. The remaining terms involving $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(l_+)`$ then preserve the heavy quark/large recoil symmetries.

To summarise this subsection, the hard-scattering contributions, calculated from Eq. (45) fall into two classes: soft contributions that formally diverge at the endpoints $`\overline{u}0`$ (or $`l_+0`$) but obey the symmetry relations predicted by Eq. (11), and hard contributions that show regular behaviour at the endpoint and (potentially) break the symmetries. These general considerations will be verified by the explicit calculation that follows below.

#### 3.2.2 $`BP`$ form factors

The hard-scattering contributions to the current matrix elements for $`BP`$ transitions are calculated using Eqs. (45), (50) together with the light-cone projection operators. The form factors are then determined by comparing the result with the definitions in Eqs. (1) and (2).

To give an example, the result for the form factor $`f_+`$ reads

$`f_+^{(\mathrm{HSA})}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2f_Bf_PM}{N_CE^2}}{\displaystyle _0^1}du{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dl_+\{{\displaystyle \frac{4EM}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi (u)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}l_+}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\overline{u})\varphi (u)\varphi _{}^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}^2l_+}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _P}{2E}}[{\displaystyle \frac{(\varphi _p(u)\varphi _\sigma ^{}(u)/6)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}^2l_+}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4E\varphi _p(u)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}l_+^2}}]\}`$
Similar expressions are obtained for $`f_0`$ and $`f_T`$. The three terms in the second line of Eq. (3.2.2) have endpoint singularities for $`\overline{u}0`$ and/or $`l_+0`$. As discussed in the previous subsection these terms preserve the symmetry structure predicted by Eq. (11). In our factorisation scheme we can absorb these contributions into $`\xi _P`$ without having to specify a regularisation procedure for the endpoint singularities. In fact, due to the renormalisation convention Eq. (33) the entire correction displayed in Eq. (3.2.2) is absorbed into $`\xi _P`$. The important point is that terms with the structure of those in the second line (which cannot be computed with standard hard scattering methods) then do not appear in the other two form factors $`f_0`$ and $`f_T`$, whereas a term with the structure of that of the first line (which is computable) does, as will be seen below.

It is worth emphasizing again that all four terms in Eq. (3.2.2) are of the same order $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/M)^{3/2}`$ with respect to the $`1/M`$ power counting. In the current context this reflects the observation made in Ref.  that in the QCD sum rule calculation some of the twist-3 distribution amplitudes contribute at leading power to the soft part of the form factor. (We can make contact with the result of Ref.  by expanding the light-cone distribution amplitudes around $`\overline{u}=0`$. Identifying

$$I_2\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }\frac{2\pi ^2f_B^2M}{N_C}\frac{du}{\overline{u}}\frac{dl_+}{l_+}\varphi _{}^B,I_1\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }\frac{2\pi ^2f_B^2ME}{N_C}\frac{du}{\overline{u}^2}\frac{dl_+}{l_+}\varphi _+^B,$$
(56)
and using the endpoint behaviour of the distribution amplitudes, we reproduce the result quoted in Eq. (87) of Ref. .) We also note that the soft contributions involve the $`\varphi _{}^B`$ amplitude of the $`B`$-meson.

The first term in Eq. (3.2.2) represents a genuine hard scattering correction which is dominated by gluon virtualities of order $`\mu ^22El_+M\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. At this order in $`\alpha _s`$, we need only two particular moments of the distribution amplitudes to compute this correction. For the light pseudoscalar meson, we need

$$\overline{u}^1_P=𝑑u\frac{\varphi (u)}{\overline{u}}.$$
(57)
This is the same moment of the leading twist distribution amplitude that contributes to the $`P\gamma `$ transition form factor (see e.g. Ref.  and references therein). For the $`B`$ meson, we need

$$l_+^1_+=𝑑l_+\frac{\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{l_+}.$$
(58)
The same moment is also needed in $`B\mathrm{}\nu \gamma `$ decays , and it also determines the leading non-factorisable hard spectator corrections to $`B\pi \pi `$ decays . It is convenient to define the quantity

$`\mathrm{\Delta }F_P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi ^2f_Bf_P}{N_CM}}l_+^1_+\overline{u}^1_P.`$ (59)
The theoretical uncertainties in the computation of the hard scattering correction due to the moments defined above and the $`B`$ meson decay constant are all contained in this quantity.

With the help of this notation, we now present the result for the hard scattering correction to $`BP`$ form factors, as defined by $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{+,0,T}`$ in Eqs. (34), (35). The renormalisation convention (33) implies $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_+0`$ by definition. The other two quantities are then given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }f_0={\displaystyle \frac{M2E}{2E}}\mathrm{\Delta }F_P,\mathrm{\Delta }f_T={\displaystyle \frac{M+m_P}{2E}}\mathrm{\Delta }F_P.`$ (60)
Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_0`$ vanishes at $`q^2=0`$ ($`E=M/2`$) as required on general grounds.

#### 3.2.3 $`BV`$ form factors

The analysis of the hard-scattering corrections to form factors for $`BV`$ transitions proceeds in the same way as for $`BP`$ decays. For instance, the contribution to the form factors $`A_0`$ and $`T_1`$ reads

$`A_0^{(\mathrm{HSA})}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2f_BM}{N_CE^2}}{\displaystyle _0^1}du{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dl_+\{{\displaystyle \frac{f_V\varphi _{}(u)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}l_+}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\overline{u})f_V\varphi _{}(u)\varphi _{}^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}^2l_+}}`$ (61)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{m_Vf_{}}{2E}}[{\displaystyle \frac{(2E)h_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(s)}(u)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}l_+^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(h_{}^{(t)}(u)h_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(s)}(u)/2)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}^2l_+}}]\}`$
$`T_1^{(\mathrm{HSA})}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2f_BM}{N_CE^2}}{\displaystyle _0^1}du{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dl_+\{{\displaystyle \frac{2E}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{f_{}\varphi _{}(u)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}l_+}}+{\displaystyle \frac{f_{}\varphi _{}(u)\varphi _{}^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}^2l_+}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{m_Vf_V}{2E}}[{\displaystyle \frac{2E(g_{}^{(v)}(u)g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a)}(u)/4)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}l_+^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(g_{}^{(v)}(u)g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a)}(u)/4)\varphi _+^B(l_+)}{\overline{u}^2l_+}}]\}`$
The last three terms in $`A_0`$ and $`T_1`$ represent again a universal soft contribution that can be absorbed into $`\xi _{}`$ and $`\xi _{}`$, respectively. Only the first term gives rise to the symmetry-breaking correction. We introduce the quantities

$`\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi ^2f_Bf_V}{N_CM}}l_+^1_+\overline{u}^1_{},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi ^2f_Bf_{}}{N_CM}}l_+^1_+\overline{u}^1_{},`$ (63)
where $`\overline{u}^1_{}=𝑑u\varphi _{}(u)/\overline{u}`$, $`\overline{u}^1_{}=𝑑u\varphi _{}(u)/\overline{u}`$. The renormalisation convention (33) implies no correction to $`A_0`$ and $`V`$. The hard correction to the other $`BV`$ form factors, defined in Eqs. (36)-(41), reads

$`\mathrm{\Delta }A_1=0,\mathrm{\Delta }A_2={\displaystyle \frac{m_V}{E}}{\displaystyle \frac{M}{Mm_V}}{\displaystyle \frac{M(M2E)}{4E^2}}\mathrm{\Delta }F_{},`$ (64)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }T_1={\displaystyle \frac{M}{4E}}\mathrm{\Delta }F_{},\mathrm{\Delta }T_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Delta }F_{},\mathrm{\Delta }T_3={\displaystyle \frac{M}{4E}}\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{m_V}{E}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{2E}}\right)^2\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}.`$ (65)
### 3.3 Summary of corrections to form factor ratios

The complete result for the form factors at order $`\alpha _s`$ is given by Eqs. (34)-(41), together with the expressions for the hard scattering correction in the previous subsection.

We summarise here how the form factor ratios (26)-(28) are modified by the symmetry-breaking corrections at order $`\alpha _s`$. For the $`B`$ pseudoscalar meson form factors we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{f_+}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2E}{M}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[22L\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{M(M2E)}{(2E)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_P}{\xi _P}}\right),`$ (66)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{f_T}{f_+}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_P+M}{M}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}+2L\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{M}{2E}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_P}{\xi _P}}\right),`$ (67)
The form factors for transitions between a $`B`$ meson and transversely or longitudinally polarized light vector mesons satisfy the relations

$$\frac{A_1}{V}=\frac{2EM}{(M+m_V)^2},$$
(68)
$$\frac{T_1}{V}=\frac{M}{2E}\frac{T_2}{V}=\frac{M}{M+m_V}\left(1+\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }\left[\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}L\right]+\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }\frac{M}{4E}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}}{\xi _{}}\right),$$
(69)
and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{(M+m_V)/(2E)A_1(Mm_V)/MA_2}{(m_V/E)A_0}}`$ $`=`$ (70)
$`1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[2+2L\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{M(M2E)}{(2E)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}}{(E/m_V)\xi _{}}},`$
$$\frac{(M/2E)T_2T_3}{(m_V/E)A_0}=1+\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }\left[\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}2+4L\right]\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }\left(\frac{M}{2E}\right)^2\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}}{(E/m_V)\xi _{}},$$
(71)
respectively. The various quantities $`\xi _{P,,}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }F_{P,,}`$ and $`L`$ are defined in Eqs. (33), (59),(63) and (42). The radiatively corrected form factor ratios (66)-(71) constitute the main result of this paper. Note that two relations, namely the ones between $`A_1`$ and $`V`$ and between $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$ do not receive $`\alpha _s`$ corrections to leading order in the $`1/M`$ expansion.

## 4 Numerical analysis

We now turn to the numerical analysis of the form factor ratios (66)-(71). We take a pion as a representative pseudoscalar meson and a $`\rho `$ meson as a representative vector meson. There is little theoretical uncertainty in the evaluation of the vertex correction. Assuming that the scale-dependent tensor form factors are renormalized at the scale $`\mu _1=m_b`$, the only uncertainty arises from the scale of $`\alpha _s`$, which we also take to be $`\mu _1`$.

The hard scattering correction is more difficult to estimate. Although it depends only on universal quantities, some of them, $`l_+^1_+`$ in particular, are not well known. Note that the characteristic scale for the hard scattering correction is $`(M\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}})^{1/2}`$ and all quantities in the hard scattering correction are evaluated at $`\mu _2=1.47`$GeV. We use the following input parameters:

Meson decay constants. The pion decay constant $`f_\pi =131`$MeV. For the $`\rho `$ meson decay constant we assume $`f_\rho =198`$MeV and $`f_{\rho ,}(\mu _2)=152`$MeV, coincident with Ref. . (We ignore a small difference due to the slightly different renormalisation scale.) Finally, $`f_B=180`$MeV. The uncertainty in the evaluation of the hard scattering correction coming from the decay constant is estimated to be around $`\pm 15\%`$.

Light-cone distribution amplitudes. Since $`l_+^1_+1/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, but nothing else is known about this parameter at present, we estimate it to be $`(0.20.5\text{GeV})^1`$ and take $`(0.3\text{GeV})^1`$ as our central value. (Using the $`B`$ meson distribution amplitude suggested in Ref. , one obtains $`l_+^1_+=(0.32\mathrm{GeV})^1`$.) The situation is more favourable for the light mesons. The asymptotic distribution amplitude $`\varphi _\pi (u)=6u\overline{u}`$ is now favored by the CLEO data  on the $`\pi \gamma `$ form factor (see also Refs. ), so that $`\overline{u}^1_\pi =3`$. For the $`\rho `$ meson we use the result for the second Gegenbauer moment quoted in Ref. , which leads to $`\overline{u}^1_{}=3.48`$ and $`\overline{u}^1_{}=3.51`$. The uncertainty in the evaluation of the hard scattering correction coming from the meson distribution amplitudes is estimated to be around $`\pm 50\%`$ with most of the uncertainty due to the $`B`$ meson.

Soft form factors. We also need an estimate for the absolute value of the functions $`\xi _\pi `$, $`\xi _{}`$ and $`\xi _{}`$ at large recoil in order to compute ratios such as $`\mathrm{\Delta }F_P/\xi _P`$. Given the conditions (33), we use $`f_+(q^2=0)`$, $`V(0)`$ and $`A_0(0)`$ as input and parametrise the energy dependence by the energy dependence of the soft form factor in the heavy quark/large recoil limit, Eq. (30), i.e. we take

$$\{\xi _P,\frac{M+m_V}{M}\xi _{},\frac{E}{m_V}\xi _{}\}=\{f_+(0),V(0),A_0(0)\}\times \left(\frac{M}{2E}\right)^2$$
(72)
with

$$\{f_+^\pi (0),V^\rho (0),A_0^\rho (0)\}=\{0.305,0.338,0.372\}$$
(73)
from the QCD sum rule calculations of Refs. . The uncertainty in the evaluation of the hard scattering correction coming from the soft form factor is estimated to be around $`\pm 20\%`$.

Combining these input parameters, we obtain

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_P^\pi }{f_+^\pi (0)}=3.85,\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}^\rho }{V^\rho (0)}=4.72,\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}^\rho }{A_0^\rho (0)}=5.54$$
(74)
with an overall uncertainty of about $`60\%`$. The result for the form factor ratios (66)-(71) is shown as the central solid curve in Fig. 2, using $`\alpha _s(\mu _1)=0.22`$ and $`\alpha _s(\mu _2)=0.34`$. The other two solid curves follow from multiplying the numbers in Eq. (74) by 0.4 and 1.6, respectively, and reflect the current theoretical uncertainty in evaluating the symmetry breaking correction. As a general rule, the hard scattering correction is larger than the vertex correction, and therefore the theoretical uncertainty remains significant. A determination of the $`B`$ meson parameter $`l_+^1_+`$ would be very helpful to eliminate the single most important theoretical uncertainty. The typical size of the symmetry-breaking correction is of the order of $`10\%`$ in the range $`0q^2M^2/4`$. An exception is the last relation (g), between $`T_2`$, $`T_3`$ and $`A_0`$, which might receive a negative correction of $`30\%`$. Since the large recoil symmetries apply only for small $`q^2M^2`$, the $`q^2`$ range shown is restricted to values smaller than $`7\text{GeV}^2`$.

It is instructive to compare our results with the QCD sum rule calculations. In Fig. 2 we plot the effective form factor parametrisation for $`B\pi `$ transitions from Ref.  and for $`B\rho `$ transitions from Ref. . In general we find a fair agreement of the two results, as far as the magnitude and sign of the symmetry-breaking correction is concerned, with the exception of the ratios $`T_1/V`$ and $`T_2/V`$ (Fig. 2d and e). In particular, we note that in both approaches the relation between $`A_1`$ and $`V`$ (Fig. 2c) and the relation between $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$ (Fig. 2d vs. Fig. 2e) receive practically no corrections. The QCD sum rule calculations also include some $`1/M`$ corrections, as well as quadratic meson mass effects, while the ratios (66)-(71) are strictly valid at leading order in the heavy quark expansion. The two calculations are therefore not directly comparable at the level of $`1/M`$ effects and this may explain the remaining numerical differences.

The advantage of the present approach over the QCD sum rule approach is that it does not require the duality assumption in the $`B`$ meson channel, but refers directly to the light-cone distributions of the $`B`$ meson. This is allows us to compute radiative corrections to the symmetry limit with less model-dependence than in the sum rule approach. The price for this is that the result depends on the parameter $`l_+^1_+`$, which may perhaps be constrained in the future, but remains poorly known for now. Furthermore, the duality assumption in the QCD sum rule method permits the calculation of the soft contribution to the form factors, which must be taken as an input, when one relies on symmetries and hard scattering methods only.

## 5 Application to the forward-backward asymmetry in $`BV\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$

The forward-backward (FB) asymmetry in the decay $`BV\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ (where $`V`$ is a vector meson, for example a $`K^{}`$ meson) provides an interesting example, where the model-independent form factor ratios derived above may be useful. Burdman  noted, using form factor models, that the location of the forward-backward asymmetry zero was nearly independent on the form factor models he considered. An explanation of this fact was given by Ali et al. , who noted that the form factor ratios on which the asymmetry zero depends are predicted free of hadronic uncertainties in the heavy quark/large energy limit considered in Ref. . We are now in the position to discuss the effect of radiative corrections to the symmetry limit.

The decay $`BK^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ is induced by the flavour-changing neutral current transition $`bs\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$. In the Standard Model, after integrating out top quarks, $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons, it is described by the effective weak hamiltonian reviewed in detail in Ref. . Let us begin the discussion by considering only the ‘semi-hadronic’ operators in the effective hamiltonian

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}V_{ts}^{}V_{tb}\underset{i=7,9,10}{}C_i(\mu )𝒪_i(\mu )$$
(75)
where

$$𝒪_7=\frac{e}{8\pi ^2}m_b\overline{s}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }(1+\gamma _5)bF_{\mu \nu },$$
(76)
$$𝒪_9=[\overline{s}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)b][\overline{l}\gamma _\mu l],𝒪_{10}=[\overline{s}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)b][\overline{l}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5l],$$

and $`C_i(\mu )`$ are the corresponding short-distance Wilson coefficients. The Wilson coefficients are calculable in the standard model, but they may also receive contributions from new particles in theories beyond the SM, and hence their experimental determination is of great interest. (Of course extensions of the standard model may introduce a larger set of operators as well.) The FB asymmetry zero in the decay $`BK^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ provides a way to determine $`C_9`$.

The forward-backward asymmetry is defined as

$$\frac{dA_{\mathrm{FB}}}{dq^2}=_0^1d(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\frac{d^2\mathrm{\Gamma }}{dq^2d\mathrm{cos}\theta }_1^0d(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\frac{d^2\mathrm{\Gamma }}{dq^2d\mathrm{cos}\theta },$$
(77)
where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the positively charged lepton and the $`B`$ meson in the $`\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ pair rest frame, and $`q^2`$ is the invariant mass of the lepton pair. The double-differential decay width is obtained by computing the matrix elements $`K^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}|𝒪_{7,9,10}|\overline{B}`$. The hadronic part of the matrix elements is parametrised in terms of the form factors in Eqs. (3)-(6). Without going into the details here (which can be found in Ref.  or elsewhere), the FB asymmetry is found to be

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dA_{\mathrm{FB}}}{dq^2}}`$ $``$ $`C_{10}[C_9V(q^2)A_1(q^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{m_b}{q^2}}C_7(V(q^2)T_2(q^2)(Mm_K^{})`$ (78)
$`+A_1(q^2)T_1(q^2)(M+m_K^{}))],`$
If this vanishes for a certain value $`s_0=q_0^2`$, then

$`C_9`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_b}{s_0}}C_7\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{T_2(s_0)}{A_1(s_0)}}(Mm_K^{})+{\displaystyle \frac{T_1(s_0)}{V(s_0)}}(M+m_K^{})\right\}`$ (79)
Making use of Eqs. (68), (69), we find that

$$\frac{T_2(s_0)}{A_1(s_0)}(Mm_K^{})=\frac{T_1(s_0)}{V(s_0)}(M+m_K^{}),$$
(80)
including radiative corrections (neglecting, as always, terms of order $`m_K^{}^2/M^2`$), so that Eq. (79) can be written as

$`C_9`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2Mm_b}{s_0}}C_7\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{\mu ^2}}L\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F_{}}{\xi _{}(s_0)}}\right).`$ (81)
Consider first the leading order result. Even at leading order one cannot neglect the effect of four quark operators and the chromomagnetic dipole operator in the weak effective hamiltonian. Their effect is conventionally taken into account by defining “effective” Wilson coefficients, such that $`C_7C_7^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`C_9\text{Re}(C_9^{\mathrm{eff}}(s_0))`$ in Eq. (81). $`C_9^{\mathrm{eff}}(s_0)`$ is not a true short-distance quantity, acquiring $`q^2`$-dependence and an imaginary part, which turns Eq. (81) into an implicit equation for $`s_0`$. Assuming standard model values for the Wilson coefficients, the solution is $`s_0=2.9\text{GeV}^2`$ , which is small enough to justify the application of large recoil symmetries. The magnitude of the radiative correction to the symmetry limit of Eq. (81) can be deduced from Fig. 2d to be $`(6.5\pm 5)\%`$. This range can be considerably narrowed, when more information on the moment (58) of the $`B`$ meson distribution amplitude becomes available. Since $`C_7^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is already constrained to be close to its standard model value from the measurement of inclusive $`bs\gamma `$ decays, Eq. (81) provides an almost model-independent determination of $`C_9`$ as soon as $`s_0`$ is measured, and assuming that the matrix elements of the four quark operators can be computed to sufficient accuracy. (For completeness we note that the form factor ratios required for the present analysis are exactly those where there exists a discrepancy with the QCD sum rule result. From Fig. 2d, we also deduce that the QCD sum rule calculation of the relevant form factor ratios leads to a 3% reduction of $`s_0`$. This adds importance to clarifying the origin of this discrepancy.)

We should emphasize that Eq. (81) is not a complete result at order $`\alpha _s`$ even after replacing the Wilson coefficients $`C_{7,9}`$ by effective coefficients. A technical way to see this is to note that the $`\mu `$-dependent logarithm in Eq. (81), which arises from the scale-dependent tensor form factor, does not compensate completely the renormalisation scale dependence of $`C_7^{\mathrm{eff}}`$. There exist further corrections at order $`\alpha _s`$, originating from four quark operators and the chromomagnetic dipole operator in the weak effective hamiltonian, which cannot be expressed in terms of form factors, i.e. matrix elements of the type $`K^{}|\overline{s}\mathrm{\Gamma }b|\overline{B}`$. Sample Feynman diagrams are shown in Fig. 3e-g, compared to the diagrams in Fig. 3a-d, which do assume the structure of form factor matrix elements.

However, drawing upon the factorisation formula for non-leptonic $`B`$ decays , we note that the matrix elements of all operators in the weak effective hamiltonian, including four quark operators, can be expressed as

$$K^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}|𝒪_i|\overline{B}=C_i\xi +\mathrm{\Phi }_BT_i\mathrm{\Phi }_K^{},$$
(82)
i.e. in a form similar to Eq. (31). This allows us to compute the corrections of the type shown in Fig. 3e-g without introducing further non-perturbative parameters and to discuss exclusive radiative and semi-leptonic decays in a systematic way, comparable to the case of form factors and non-leptonic $`B`$ decays. This extension of the present work, and a complete discussion of the radiatively corrected FB asymmetry zero, will be presented elsewhere.

## 6 Conclusion

In this article we reconsidered the heavy quark/large recoil symmetries for heavy-to-light $`B`$ meson form factors (at large recoil) discussed first in Ref. . We find that these symmetries, discussed originally for the soft parts of the form factors, survive radiative corrections in the sense that symmetry-breaking effects are dominated by hard scattering and therefore computable with standard methods. The structure of the corrections is tentatively summarised by the factorisation formula Eq. (31), which is similar to the factorisation formula for non-leptonic $`B`$ decays . However, much more theoretical work is needed to establish Eq. (31), or a variant thereof, beyond the calculation of symmetry-breaking effects.

The symmetries, and the calculation of symmetry-breaking effects, put the discussion of heavy-light form factors at large recoil on a similar conceptual footing as heavy-light form factors at small recoil or heavy-heavy form factors. In the symmetry limit (heavy quark limit) the three independent form factors for $`BP`$ transitions reduce to a single function $`\xi _P`$ for each pseudoscalar meson, and the seven independent form factors for $`BV`$ transitions reduce to two functions $`\xi _{}`$, $`\xi _{}`$ for each vector meson, corresponding to transverse or longitudinal polarization of the vector meson. Symmetry-breaking effects come from hard gluon corrections and fall into two classes: vertex corrections to the heavy-to-light current, which can be treated in an analogous way as in heavy quark effective theory, and hard rescattering with the spectator quark which is described by the hard-scattering approach and which involves light-cone distribution amplitudes of the participating mesons. The second class of corrections is a specifically new element of form factors at large recoil.

The numerical evaluation of the symmetry-breaking corrections typically yields 10% effects to form factor ratios; larger effects are possible for some form factor ratios, while two ratios do not receive any correction at order $`\alpha _s`$. There is at present a sizeable uncertainty in evaluating the hard-scattering correction, which seems to limit the usefulness of the present analysis. However, the major part of this uncertainty is due to a single moment of the $`B`$ meson distribution amplitude. This moment is a $`B`$-meson-universal quantity, and since only recently it has been realised that this quantity appears in many $`B`$ decays, we should expect this quantity to be determined much more accurately in the future.

The form factor relations at large recoil turn out to be strikingly useful for the forward-backward asymmetry in the exclusive decay $`BK^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$, as already noted in Ref. . Here we find symmetry-breaking corrections on the order of 5%, but a definite conclusion must await the calculation of non-form factor type corrections at order $`\alpha _s`$. We plan to complete this task in a future publication.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank V.M. Braun, G. Buchalla and G.P. Korchemsky for helpful discussions.

## Appendix A Light-cone projections of light mesons

### A.1 Twist-2 and -3 distribution amplitudes of pseudoscalars

We follow the conventions of Ref.  in defining the light-cone distribution amplitudes of light pseudoscalar mesons:

$`P(p^{})|\overline{q}(y)\gamma _\mu \gamma _5q(x)|0`$ $`=`$ $`if_Pp_\mu ^{}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}\varphi (u),`$
$`P(p^{})|\overline{q}(y)i\gamma _5q(x)|0`$ $`=`$ $`f_P\mu _P{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}\varphi _p(u),`$
$`P(p^{})|\overline{q}(y)\sigma _{\mu \nu }\gamma _5q(x)|0`$ $`=`$ $`if_P\mu _P(p_\mu ^{}z_\nu p_\nu ^{}z_\mu ){\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _\sigma (u)}{6}}.`$ (83)
Here we defined $`z=yx`$, and $`f_P`$ is the decay constant. The parameter $`\mu _P=M_P^2/(m_1+m_2)`$ is proportional to the chiral condensate. (This definition holds for charged mesons, in which case the flavours of the light quarks with masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ are different.) $`\varphi (u)`$ is the leading twist-2 distribution amplitude. All three distribution amplitudes are normalised to 1, as can be seen by taking the limit $`xy`$. Above and in the following we implicitly assume that matrix elements are supplied with the appropriate path-ordered exponentials of gluon fields in order to make the definitions of distribution amplitudes gauge-invariant. The above definitions can be combined into

$`P(p^{})|\overline{q}_\alpha (y)q_\delta (x)|0={\displaystyle \frac{if_P}{4}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}`$
$`\times \left\{p/^{}\gamma _5\varphi (u)\mu _P\gamma _5\left(\varphi _p(u)\sigma _{\mu \nu }p^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }z_{}^{\nu }{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _\sigma (u)}{6}}\right)\right\}_{\delta \alpha }`$ (84)
To obtain the momentum space projector $`M_{\delta \alpha }^L`$, which appears in Eq. (45), we take the Fourier transform of Eq. (84), using

$`z^\lambda `$ $``$ $`(i){\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{1\lambda }}}=(i)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{n_+^\lambda }{2E}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{u}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n_{}^\lambda }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_1^{}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{}_\lambda }}\right\}`$ (85)
under Fourier transformation, where $`k_1`$ is the quark momentum defined in Eq. (44). The light-cone vectors $`n_\pm `$ are defined as after Eq. (10) and the transverse projection is defined with respect to these two vectors. The derivative is supposed to act on the hard scattering amplitude in the momentum space representation. The derivative with respect to the momentum fraction $`u`$ can be made to act on the light-cone distribution amplitude by partial integration; the second term in Eq. (85) drops out; the third term, which involves the derivative with respect to the transverse momentum, acts on the hard-scattering amplitude before the collinear limit $`k_1=up^{}=uEn_{}`$ is taken. The light-cone projection operator of light pseudoscalar mesons in momentum space, including twist-3 two-particle contributions, then reads

$$M_{\delta \alpha }^P=\frac{if_P}{4}\left\{p/^{}\gamma _5\varphi (u)\mu _P\gamma _5\left(\varphi _p(u)i\sigma _{\mu \nu }n_{}^\mu v^\nu \frac{\varphi _\sigma ^{}(u)}{6}+i\sigma _{\mu \nu }p^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }\frac{\varphi _\sigma (u)}{6}\frac{}{k_{}_\nu }\right)\right\}_{\delta \alpha }.$$
(86)
A complete description of the pseudoscalar meson at the twist-3 level would also include three-particle quark-antiquark-gluon contributions, which we do not give here (see Ref. ).

The asymptotic limit of the leading twist distribution amplitude is $`\varphi (u)=6u\overline{u}`$. The twist-3 two-particle distribution amplitudes are completely determined by the three-particle distributions via the equations of motions except for a single term. In the approximation that we set all three-particle distributions to zero (which is not an approximation that can be justified in any limit, but which is nonetheless useful to gain some insight in the structure of twist-3 two-particle contributions), the two twist-3 distribution amplitudes $`\varphi _p`$ and $`\varphi _\sigma `$ are related by the equations of motion

$$\frac{u}{2}\left(\varphi _p(u)+\frac{\varphi _\sigma ^{}(u)}{6}\right)=\frac{\varphi _\sigma (u)}{6},\frac{\overline{u}}{2}\left(\varphi _p(u)\frac{\varphi _\sigma ^{}(u)}{6}\right)=\frac{\varphi _\sigma (u)}{6},$$
(87)
which imply $`\varphi _p(u)=1`$ and $`\varphi _\sigma (u)=6u\overline{u}`$. Note that $`\varphi _p`$ and $`\varphi _\sigma ^{}`$ do not vanish at the endpoints.

### A.2 Twist-2 and -3 distribution amplitudes of vector mesons

We follow Ref.  in defining the light-cone distribution amplitudes of light vector mesons with the exception that our convention for the outgoing light vector meson state differs by a factor $`(i)`$ from the one of Ref. . (This is necessary for consistency with the conventions used for the form factors in Eqs. (3)-(6).) We restrict ourselves again to the twist-2 and twist-3 two-particle amplitudes (neglecting terms suppressed by $`m_V^2/E^2`$ whenever they are not multiplied by the longitudinal polarisation vector), and define $`z=yx`$ with $`z^2=0`$ as before. To correctly account for meson mass effects, we define the meson momentum to be $`P^{}`$ with $`P_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=m_V^2`$ and the light-like vector $`p_\mu ^{}=P_\mu ^{}m_V^2z_\mu /(2P^{}z)`$. The chiral-even amplitudes are given by

$$V(P^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}(y)\gamma _\mu q(x)|0=if_Vm_V_0^1𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}\left\{p_\mu ^{}\frac{\epsilon ^{}z}{p^{}z}\varphi _{}(u)+\epsilon _{}^{}{}_{\mu }{}^{}g_{}^{(v)}(u)\right\},$$
(88)
$$V(P^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}(y)\gamma _\mu \gamma _5q(x)|0=if_Vm_Vϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon ^{}{}_{}{}^{\nu }p_{}^{\rho }z^\sigma _0^1𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}\frac{g_{}^{(a)}(u)}{4},$$
(89)
with $`f_V`$ being the usual vector meson decay constant. The chiral-odd light-cone distribution amplitudes are given by

$`V(P^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}(y)\sigma _{\mu \nu }q(x)|0`$ $`=`$ $`f_{}{\displaystyle _0^1}due^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}\{(\epsilon _{}^{}{}_{\mu }{}^{}p_{\nu }^{}\epsilon _{}^{}{}_{\nu }{}^{}p_{\mu }^{})\varphi _{}(u)`$ (90)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2\epsilon ^{}z}{(p^{}z)^2}}(p_\mu ^{}z_\nu p_\nu ^{}z_\mu )h_{}^{(t)}(u)\},`$
$$V(P^{},\epsilon ^{})|\overline{q}(y)q(x)|0=f_{}m_V^2\epsilon ^{}z_0^1𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}\frac{h_{}^{(s)}(u)}{2}.$$
(91)
The chiral-odd amplitudes involve the (scale-dependent) transverse decay constant $`f_{}`$. We have neglected terms proportional to the light-quark masses. The longitudinal and transverse projections of the polarization tensor are defined as

$`\epsilon _{}^{}{}_{\mu }{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}z}{P^{}z}}(P_\mu ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{P^{}z}}z_\mu ),\epsilon _{}^{}{}_{\mu }{}^{}=\epsilon _\mu ^{}\epsilon _{}^{}{}_{\mu }{}^{}.`$ (92)
Note that the longitudinal projection of the polarization vector counts as $`𝒪(E/m_V)`$. Eqs. (88)-(91) can be combined into the expression

$`V(P^{},\lambda )|\overline{q}_\alpha (y)q_\delta (x)|0={\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑ue^{i(up^{}y+\overline{u}p^{}x)}`$
$`\times \{f_Vm_V(p_\mu ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}z}{p^{}z}}\varphi _{}(u)+\epsilon /_{}^{}g_{}^{(v)}(u)+ϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon ^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }p_{}^{\rho }z^\sigma \gamma ^\mu \gamma _5{\displaystyle \frac{g_{}^{(a)}(u)}{4}})`$
$`+f_{}(\epsilon /_{}^{}p/^{}\varphi _{}(u)i{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2\epsilon z}{(p^{}z)^2}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }p^\mu z^\nu h_{}^{(t)}(u)im_V^2\epsilon ^{}z{\displaystyle \frac{h_{}^{(s)}(u)}{2}})\}_{\delta \alpha }.`$ (93)
To perform the Fourier transform we first express the previous equation in terms of the $`z`$-independent vectors $`P^{}`$ and $`ϵ^{}`$. The Fourier transform of the terms with $`p^{}z=P^{}z`$ in the denominator can be treated by partial integration, leading to integrals over the distribution amplitudes. Potential surface terms vanish as a consequence of the relations (102) and (104) below (provided that additional gluon contributions vanish as well). After the Fourier transform is taken we introduce the two light-like vectors $`n_\pm `$, and write $`P_\mu ^{}=En_\mu +m_V^2n_{+\mu }/(4E)`$. The transverse plane is now defined with respect to the two vectors $`n_\pm `$. We then obtain for the momentum space representation of the vector meson light-cone projection:

$$M_{\delta \alpha }^V=M_{\delta \alpha }^V{}_{}{}^{}+M_{\delta \alpha }^V_{}$$
(94)
with

$`M_{}^V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_V}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V(\epsilon ^{}n_+)}{2E}}En/_{}\varphi _{}(u){\displaystyle \frac{if_{}m_V}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V(\epsilon ^{}n_+)}{2E}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }n_{}^\mu n_+^\nu h_{}^{(t)}(u)`$ (95)
$`iE{\displaystyle _0^u}dv(\varphi _{}(v)h_{}^{(t)}(v))\sigma _{\mu \nu }n_{}^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{}_\nu }}+{\displaystyle \frac{h_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(s)}(u)}{2}}\left\}\right|_{k=up^{}}`$
and

$`M_{}^V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_{}}{4}}E\epsilon /_{}^{}n/_{}\varphi _{}(u){\displaystyle \frac{if_Vm_V}{4}}\{\epsilon /_{}^{}g_{}^{(v)}(u)`$ (97)
$`E{\displaystyle _0^u}𝑑v(\varphi _{}(v)g_{}^{(v)}(v))n/_{}\epsilon _\mu ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_\mu }}`$
$`+iϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon _{}^\nu n_{}^\rho \gamma ^\mu \gamma _5[n_+^\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a)}(u)}{8}}E{\displaystyle \frac{g_{}^{(a)}(u)}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{}_\sigma }}]\left\}\right|_{k=up^{}},`$
and where now

$$\epsilon _{}^\mu \epsilon ^\mu \frac{\epsilon n_+}{2}n_{}^\mu \frac{\epsilon n_{}}{2}n_+^\mu .$$
(98)
In the main body of the text we usually neglect power-suppressed higher-twist effects, i.e. we identify the meson momentum $`P^{}`$ with $`p^{}En_{}`$ and set $`\epsilon ^{}n_{}=0`$.

The twist-3 distribution amplitudes are related to the twist-2 ones by Wandzura-Wilczek–type relations, namely

$`g_{}^{(v)}(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle _0^u}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{\overline{v}}}𝑑v+{\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v\right]+\mathrm{},`$
$`g_{}^{(a)}(u)`$ $`=`$ $`2\left[\overline{u}{\displaystyle _0^u}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{\overline{v}}}𝑑v+u{\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (99)
for the chiral-even amplitudes, and

$`h_{}^{(t)}(u)`$ $`=`$ $`(2u1)\left[{\displaystyle _0^u}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{\overline{v}}}𝑑v{\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v\right]+\mathrm{},`$
$`h_{}^{(s)}(u)`$ $`=`$ $`2\left[\overline{u}{\displaystyle _0^u}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{\overline{v}}}𝑑v+u{\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (100)
for the chiral-odd amplitudes. The ellipses in Eqs. (99), (100) (and the following ones) indicate additional contributions from three-particle distribution amplitudes containing gluons and terms proportional to light quark masses, which we do not consider here. Eqs. (99), (100) also imply

$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a)}(u)}{4}}+g_{}^{(v)}(u)={\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v+\mathrm{}`$ (101)
$`{\displaystyle _0^u}(\varphi _{}(v)g_{}^{(v)}(v))𝑑v={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\overline{u}{\displaystyle _0^u}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{\overline{v}}}𝑑vu{\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v\right]+\mathrm{},`$ (102)
and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{h_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(s)}(u)}{2}}+h_{}^{(t)}(u)=2\overline{u}\left[{\displaystyle _0^u}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{\overline{v}}}𝑑v{\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v\right]+\mathrm{},`$ (103)
$`{\displaystyle _0^u}(\varphi _{}(v)h_{}^{(t)}(v))𝑑v=u\overline{u}\left[{\displaystyle _0^u}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{\overline{v}}}𝑑v{\displaystyle _u^1}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{}(v)}{v}}𝑑v\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (104)
Again all distribution amplitudes are normalized to unity. $`\varphi _{}`$, $`\varphi _{}`$, $`g_{}^{(a)}`$, and $`h_{}^{(s)}`$ vanish at the endpoints, whereas $`g_{}^{(v)}`$, and $`h_{}^{(t)}`$ do not.

## Appendix B Derivation of the $`B`$ meson projection

### B.1 The momentum space projector

In this appendix we derive the result for the $`B`$ meson projection operator stated in Eq. (49) starting from the two-particle light-cone matrix element in coordinate space. We follow the convention of Ref.  and introduce the two functions $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_\pm ^B(t)`$ through the Lorentz decomposition of the following light-cone matrix element:

$$0|\overline{q}_\beta (z)P(z,0)b_\alpha (0)|\overline{B}(p)=\frac{if_BM}{4}\left[\frac{1+v/}{2}\{2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_+^B(t)+\frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{}^B(t)\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_+^B(t)}{t}z/\}\gamma _5\right]_{\alpha \beta }.$$
(105)
We assume that $`z^2=0`$, defined $`t=vz`$, $`p=Mv`$ and the path-ordered exponential

$$P(z_2,z_1)=\text{P}\mathrm{exp}\left(ig_s\underset{z_2}{\overset{z_1}{}}𝑑z^\mu A_\mu (z)\right).$$
(106)
Eq. (105) is the most general parametrisation compatible with Lorentz-invariance and the heavy quark limit. The prefactor is chosen in such a way that for $`z=0`$ one obtains

$`0|\overline{q}_\beta \left[\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5\right]_{\beta \alpha }b_\alpha |\overline{B}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`if_BMv^\mu `$ (107)
if $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_+^B(t=0)=\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{}^B(t=0)=1`$.

Let us call $`M(z)`$ the matrix element in Eq. (105) and $`A(z)`$ ($`A(l)`$) the hard scattering amplitude in coordinate (momentum) space. Then we obtain the momentum space projector $`M^B`$ of Eq. (49) through the identity

$$d^4zM(z)A(z)=\frac{d^4l}{(2\pi )^4}A(l)d^4ze^{ilz}M(z)_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑l_+M^BA(l)|_{l=\frac{l_+}{2}n_+},$$
(108)
with $`l`$ decomposed as in Eq. (43),

$$l^\mu =\frac{l_+}{2}n_+^\mu +\frac{l_{}}{2}n_{}^\mu +l_{}^\mu .$$

The factors $`z/`$ and $`1/(vz)`$ that appear in Eq. (105) can be removed by having a derivative act on the hard scattering amplitude, and by partial integration, as in the case of the light meson distribution amplitudes. If we then introduce the momentum space distribution amplitudes through

$`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_\pm ^B(t)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega e^{i\omega t}\varphi _\pm ^B(\omega ),`$ (109)
we obtain

$`{\displaystyle d^4zM(z)A(z)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_BM}{4}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1+v/}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega \{2\varphi _+^B(\omega )`$ (110)
$`{\displaystyle _0^\omega }d\eta (\varphi _{}^B(\eta )\varphi _+^B(\eta ))\gamma ^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{}{l_\mu }}\}\gamma _5]_{\alpha \beta }A(l)_{\beta \alpha }|_{l=\omega v}.`$
This is close to the desired expression except that $`l=\omega v=\omega (n_++n_{})/2`$. However, the hard scattering amplitude $`A(l)`$ for a decay into an energetic light meson moving in the $`n_{}`$ direction has the property that it is independent of $`l_{}`$ at leading order in the heavy quark expansion. More precisely, it can be written as

$$A(l)=A^{(0)}(l_+)+l_{}^\mu A_\mu ^{(1)}(l_+)+O(1/M).$$
(111)
Hence the $`n_{}`$ component of $`v`$ does not contribute and we may set $`l=\omega n_+/2`$, which amounts to identifying $`\omega `$ and $`l_+`$ in view of Eq. (43). Using

$$\frac{}{l_\mu }=n_{}^\mu \frac{}{l_+}+n_+^\mu \frac{}{l_{}}+\frac{}{l_\mu },$$
(112)
(and dropping the derivative with respect to $`l_{}`$), we obtain

$`M_{\beta \alpha }^B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_BM}{4}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1+v/}{2}}\{\varphi _+^B(\omega )n/_++\varphi _{}^B(\omega )n/_{}`$ (113)
$`{\displaystyle _0^{l_+}}d\eta (\varphi _{}^B(\eta )\varphi _+^B(\eta ))\gamma ^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{}{l_\mu }}\}\gamma _5]_{\alpha \beta }.`$
It is understood that $`l=l_+n_+/2`$ is set after performing the derivative. The $`B`$ meson light-cone projector assumes the form quoted in Eq. (49) after implementing the equation of motion constraint, Eq. (116), derived in the following subsection.

Notice that the independence of the hard scattering amplitude on $`l_{}`$ is exactly the property that guarantees that we need the bilocal matrix element (105) on the light-cone ($`z^2=0`$).

### B.2 Equation of motion constraint

We shall now show that the equation of motion for the light spectator quark relates $`\varphi _{}^B(l_+)`$ to $`\varphi _+^B(l_+)`$ and three-particle quark-antiquark-gluon distribution amplitudes. This is similar to what happens for the twist-3 two-particle amplitudes of light vector mesons. In the approximation that the three-particle amplitudes are set to zero, we can determine $`\varphi _{}^B(l_+)`$ in terms of $`\varphi _+^B(l_+)`$. (These type of relations are sometimes referred to as “Wandzura-Wilczek relations” .)

In order to derive this relation we employ the equation of motion for the light quark in Eq. (105). Since the derivative with respect to $`z_\mu `$ has to be taken before the limit $`z^20`$ let us, for the moment, extend the definitions in Eq. (105) to the case $`z^20`$ via $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_\pm ^B(t)\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_\pm ^B(t,z^2)`$. Requiring the right-hand side of Eq. (105) to vanish after application of $`[/_{z_2}]_{\beta \gamma }`$ (which is true only if the three-particle Fock-state $`b\overline{q}g`$ is neglected), and requiring $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_\pm ^B(t,z^2)`$ to not vanish as $`z^20`$, we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{}^B}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{t}}(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{}^B\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_+^B)|_{z^2=0}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (114)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_+^B}{z^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{}^B}{t^2}}|_{z^2=0}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (115)
The second equation is uninteresting for our purpose. The first equation gives the desired relation between $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_+^B`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{}^B`$ in coordinate space. In terms of the momentum space distribution amplitudes, Eq. (114) reads

$$_0^{l_+}𝑑\eta \left(\varphi _{}^B(\eta )\varphi _+^B(\eta )\right)=l_+\varphi _{}^B(l_+)\text{or}\varphi _+^B(l_+)=l_+\varphi _{}^B(l_+),$$
(116)
which is solved by

$$\varphi _{}^B(l_+)=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}\frac{d\eta }{\eta }\varphi _+^B(l_+/\eta ).$$
(117)
In terms of Mellin moments one has ($`N1`$)

$`l_+^{N1}_+`$ $`=`$ $`N,l_+^{N1}_{},\left[l_+^{N1}_\pm {\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑l_+l_+^{N1}\varphi _\pm ^B(l_+)\right].`$ (118)
The relation (118) for $`N=2`$ has been derived independently in Ref.  from the equations of motions for the heavy quark and Lorentz invariance. This yields $`l_+_+=2l_+_{}=4/3\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$, where $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ is the leading contribution to the mass difference $`Mm_b`$ in HQET. For $`N=3`$ a similar analysis gives

$`l_+^2_+=2\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda _E^2+\lambda _H^2}{3}},l_+^2_{}={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _H^2}{3}},`$ (119)
where $`\lambda _E`$ and $`\lambda _H`$ parametrise the contributions of the chromoelectric and chromomagnetic fields to the mass difference $`Mm_b`$. Note that the relation (118) is again satisfied if we set $`\lambda _E=\lambda _H`$, and in particular if both quantities vanish which is equivalent to neglecting the three-particle Fock state as we have done. Grozin and Neubert  have also proposed the simple model distribution amplitudes $`\varphi _+^B(l_+)=l_+/l_{+0}^2\mathrm{exp}[l_+/l_{+0}]`$, $`\varphi _{}^B(l_+)=1/l_{+0}\mathrm{exp}[l_+/l_{+0}]`$ inspired by a QCD sum rule analysis. It is easy to see that they satisfy the relations (117), (118) exactly.