Heavy-to-light decays on the lattice

Abstract

Precise predictions of hadronic matrix elements in heavy meson decays are important to constrain the fundamental parameters in the Standard Model of particle physics. The CKM matrix element Vub can be extracted from experimental data on the decay B → πℓν if the hadronic form factor is known. In addition, loop suppressed rare decays of B-mesons, such as B → K∗γ and B → K(∗)ℓℓ, provide valuable insight into new physics models. Hadronic form factors for exclusive meson decays can be calculated in the framework of lattice QCD. As the wavelength of heavy quarks is not resolved on currently available lattices I use an effective nonrelativistic theory to discretise the heavy degrees of freedom. In addition, the discretisation errors in the final state meson are reduced by working in a moving frame. I review the phenomenology of rare B decays and describe how lattice QCD can contribute to calculating the relevant form factors. As the short distance physics in the effective theory is different from that of QCD, the Lagrangian and decay currents need to be renormalised. I show how this can be achieved in the framework of lattice perturbation theory. I calculate the perturbative renormalisation constants of the leading order operators in the heavy quark Lagrangian. Motivated by nonperturbative studies I extend this approach to higher order kinetic terms which break rotational invariance. In combination with simulations in the weak coupling regime of the theory, results from diagrammatic lattice perturbation theory are used to calculate the heavy quark selfenergy corrections and predict the fundamental parameters of QCD. I calculate the one loop correction on a finite lattice with twisted boundary conditions which is used for the extraction of higher order perturbative corrections. I renormalise the heavy-light current to one loop order in lattice mNRQCD and present results from nonperturbative studies. Finally, I discuss how the results are used in the calculation of hadronic form factors.