Predictions for Semileptonic Decays $\bar{B}\to D(D^*)\pi\ell\bar{\nu}$ and Weak Radiative Decays of Bottom Hadrons

Abstract

The semileptonic decays $\bar{B}\to D(D^*)\pi\ell\bar{\nu}$ are analyzed by heavy quark and chiral symmetries. The branching ratio is of order of a few percent for $\dpi$, but it is much smaller for $\dstar$, of order $10^{-4}-10^{-5}$. The decay mode $B^-\to D^+\pi^-e^-\bar{\nu}_e$ provides a nice place for extracting the $D^*D\pi$ coupling constant from the semileptonic decays of a $\bar{B}$ meson. Two types of weak radiative decays of $\bar{B}$ mesons and bottom baryons are studied. The decay $\Lambda_b^0\to \Lambda^0\gamma$ receives the electromagnetic penguin $b\to s\gamma$ contribution and has a branching ratio of order $2\times 10^{-5}$. The radiative decays $\bar{B}\to D^*\gamma,~ \Lambda_b^0\to\Sigma_c^0\gamma,~\Xi_b^0\to \Xi_c^0\gamma$ and $\Xi_b^0\to{\Xi'}_c^0\gamma$ occur through $W$ exchange accompanied with a photon emission and their branching ratios are estimated to be much smaller. We conclude that the weak radiative decays of bottom hadrons are dominated by the short-distance electromagnetic penguin mechanism.