Measuring Strong and Weak Phases in Time-Independent B Decays

Abstract

Flavor SU(3) symmetry implies certain relations among $B$-decay amplitudes to $\pi\pi$, $\pi K$ and $K {\bar K}$ final states, when annihilation-like diagrams are neglected. Using three triangle relations, we show how to measure the weak CKM phases $\alpha$ and $\gamma$ using time-independent rate measurements only. In addition, one obtains all the strong final-state phases and the magnitudes of individual terms describing tree (spectator), color-suppressed and penguin diagrams. Many independent measurements of these quantities can be made with this method, which helps to eliminate possible discrete ambiguities and to estimate the size of SU(3)-breaking effects.