Using $B^0_s\to D_s^\mp K^\pm$ Decays as a Portal to New Physics

Abstract

The system of $B^0_s\to D_s^\mp K^\pm$ decays offers a theoretically clean determination of the angle $\gamma$ of the Unitarity Triangle. A corresponding LHCb analysis resulted in a surprisingly large result, which is in tension with other determinations and global analyses of the Unitarity Triangle. Paying special attention to discrete ambiguities, we confirm this picture and resolve a final ambiguity. Moreover, we extract the branching ratios of the underlying $\bar{B}^0_s\to D_s^+K^-$ and $\bar{B}^0_s\to D_s^- K^+$ modes. Combining them with information from semileptonic $B_{(s)}$ decays, we arrive at another puzzling situation, which we obtain also for other decays with similar dynamics. These patterns could be footprints of New Physics in the $b\to c \bar{u} s$ and $b \to u \bar{c} s$ processes which govern the dynamics of the $\bar{B}^0_s\to D_s^\mp K^\pm$ channels. Employing a model-independent parametrisation, we present a strategy to reveal such effects. Applying it to the present data, we obtain strongly correlated New-Physics contributions with potentially large CP-violating phases. We find that new contributions sizeably smaller than the Standard Model amplitudes could actually accommodate the current data. This strategy offers an exciting probe for new sources of CP violation at the future high-precision frontier of $B$ physics.